Lost Around America
by Glowing Insanity
Summary: They thought they were goners. But at the same time, they thought the balloons weren't going to travel far. Now scattered across the United States, the eight 'missing' contestants have to find some way to get back to Toronto. Back at the city itself, the other six are tasked with tracking their cast mates down… with only a week to do it.
1. Chapter 1: Saved

**Hey guys. :)**

 **Wow, another new story. This one I've been cooking up for quite a while now, and the time to publish it's finally come.**

 **I don't own Total Drama, or anything involved with it. There will be a few OCs mentioned in it, which in no way have any relation to the contestants, but only one of them will be seen… quite a lot, actually.**

 _ **-Prologue-**_

 _Natural disasters can affect a lot of things. A tsunami, for example, would devastate the population of the city and/or country it hit. Flooding could leave people homeless, and all their belongings washed away._

 _But when you have the sinking of an island summer camp, in the middle of a lake with the same name – that's still a disaster. Just not natural. Yet, it does have its major effects._

 _One could be the loss of a reality show's reputation, with many of the fans angered because some of their favorite cast members were blown away in supersize balloons._

 _Another could be the damage done to the show's main location._

 _But in this case, there's a lot more to it than what's right here._

 _ **Chapter 1 – Saved**_

The early evening sky was dotted with stars, some shining brighter than others. It was a fairly pleasant night, counting the brilliant full moon and the calm waters down below.

Well, they weren't exactly _that_ calm.

Various bits of debris were scattered around the lake, ranging from chairs and tables to bunk beds, and even whole buildings. On some of those buildings, there were people – mostly teens at that. They were four the six contestants that were _not_ stuck in balloons, along with the two hosts. It was mostly silent, the only sounds being the water gently lapping up against the walls, and brief small talk.

"So… we should be getting out of here soon, right?" Mike asked, turning around to face the glowing lights of the mainland.

"After six hours of waiting around on this cabin doing absolutely _nothing_ , I think that someone should have sent out a rescue helicopter or something by now." Gwen replied, wincing as she nursed her sprained ankle. "Where are the others though? Sam, Sierra, Lightning…"

"Something tells me that they would have at least popped out of their balloons by now, and be safe on solid ground." Cameron continued, his expression creased in concentration. "Just where exactly did they land?"

"If one thing's for sure, it's not near here at all. My bet is that the closest some of them are is at least Chicago."

"I don't get why Chris didn't tie down the balloons." Zoey put in, folding her arms and sighing. "Surely he would've known if they were going to blow away. But now he's… possibly in trouble. Unless the ballooned people didn't go too far."

The four teens went silent again as they looked around, hoping for a contestant to suddenly fall into the water, or for the sound of a helicopter or boat to reach their ears. They do end up hearing something – but unfortunately, it was neither of those things, but someone swimming over to them.

"Ugh, finally." A raspy voice groaned.

"Nice one on losing the mutant freakshow shark." Gwen quipped, rolling her eyes as Heather slowly and painfully pulled herself onto the cabin.

"Whatever." She scoffed, flopping onto her back and closing her eyes. "No one disturb me. I have been treading water for _hours_ on end, and I'm almost numb from head to toe. What kind of show is this anymore?"

"Uh, you do realize that we're not on camera, right?" Chris called from atop the main lodge.

"Yeah, we all know that." Zoey interrupted, casting an annoyed glance in the host's direction. "We'd be all going to make confessionals every five minutes if we were."

"Well the confessional's… currently MIA, so of course that wouldn't be happening."

"It'll be filled with water anyway, so why would we use it?" Mike put in, shrugging.

"Alright, another roll call. Who's missing?"

"Uh… just Alejandro and Owen now, I think." Gwen replied, straining her eyes to look ahead. "Actually, I think I can see Alejandro."

"Wait, really?" Heather exclaimed, her eyes now wide open. "Where is he?"

Zoey, who was also scoping out their surroundings, had spotted a figure swimming through the water some distance away. Suddenly, a bright light came into her view, and she gasped.

"I see a light!" She cheered. "I see a light!"

"Yeah, there's lights on the mainland. Of course we'd see one." Heather scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"No, there's a very bright light not too far away from us!" Cameron added, smiling in excitement. "I think it's the headlight of a boat!"

"Did I hear the words 'bright light'?" Chris asked, standing up to check out what was happening. "Well hallelujah! We are safe!"

"Call out to them!" Gwen said frantically, shuffling to sit at the end of the cabin and then starting to wave her arms madly.

"OVER HERE!" Zoey shouted, sticking a hand in the air.

The light rapidly grew bigger and bigger, as the boat got closer and closer. Soon enough, it became evident that it was a search and rescue boat, and had people on board all ready to help them.

"Hold tight, we're going as quickly as we can!" A tall woman in her mid-thirties called from the boat, armed with a coiled up rope.

Eventually, the boat stopped about twenty feet away, and the rope was chucked out, a lifesaver ring attached to the end of it.

"This is for anyone who is suffering from any injuries." A slightly older man instructed, presumably middle-aged.

"Yes please." Gwen responded, grabbing the life ring with one hand and Heather's arm with the other.

"Why are you taking _me_?" Heather asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well let's face it. I know we hate each other, but we're also pretty much in the same boat here."

"Uh, thanks, I guess."

"Ready?" The tall woman called, ready to pull the rope back towards the boat.

"Ready." The two nemeses replied.

"Okay, on the count of three, we're going to start pulling. There will be assistance once you get to the boat."

A couple of others joined on the back, and gripped onto the rope.

"One!" A somewhat familiar voice began, the owner presumably standing off to the side. "Two! Three!"

The three on the rope started pulling, making short work of their job as Gwen and Heather reached the boat within seconds.

"We'll send it out a couple more times, so sit tight!" A young adult male instructed, rearing up the small line.

The three remaining teens quickly slipped off the cabin and grabbed the life ring as soon as it was thrown to them.

Spitting out a fountain of water, Gwen found herself hauled onto the boat along with Heather, and looked up at who had helped them on.

"Wait, Bridgette?" She exclaimed. "What are you doing _here_? I thought you lived in Moncton?"

"Oh, I'm doing volunteer search and rescue work based in Toronto for this half of the summer." Bridgette replied, pulling her friend up to a sitting position. "That includes first aid as well."

"First aid? Well that's great, because I sprained my ankle during the final challenge. You got something for that?"

"I… think we might have run out of bandages. I'll just check." Bridgette turned around and walked off, going down a set of stairs not too far away.

Sighing, Gwen leaned against the boat, noticing Chris and Chef climbing on out of the corner of her eye, as well as Zoey sitting down next to her.

"Well at least we were found." She remarked. "I didn't know if there was even gonna be someone who would think of coming out here. Oh, and apparently there's a big rainstorm coming."

"That explains the dark clouds up ahead." Gwen replied, shifting her gaze up to the large, menacing storm clouds not far away from them.

The boat then started to move, just as Bridgette came out from the cabin, a bandage roll clutched in her left hand.

"Turns out we had one left!" She called, walking over to the two girls.

Meanwhile, in the boat's cabin, Heather was tightly wrapped in a blanket and lying on a mattress in the corner of the room.

"Ugh, so _cold_." She grumbled, trying to roll over. "And I still can't move. _Great_. Now what?"

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps reached her ears, and she shifted her gaze to the stairs, spotting the tall blonde woman carefully going down them, the middle-aged man right behind her.

"So you're saying that they had trackers on their ankles?" The woman asked as Chris stopped at the top.

"Yeah, the producers were pretty adamant on having them if we lost the guys in the balloons." Chris replied, shrugging. "There's a different tracking device for each contestant."

"And these devices," the middle-aged man continued, sitting down on a small stool, "where have you got them stored?"

"Oh yeah, they're in the office on the mainland. Which is in central Toronto."

"Alright, we'll get there as soon as possible and get all of them. Now another question, but how are you going to find each one of these missing contestants if they're potentially scattered all over the continent?"

"Uh, yeah… about that. You see-"

"Sorry for butting in, but I think that who you've got should be alright." The woman interrupts. "They seem to know what it takes, and will be good to go after a few days of rest and recovery."

"That was actually… what I was going to say, but okay then!"

Still lying on the mattress in the corner, Heather quietly groaned and rolled her eyes.

"No thanks." She muttered under her breath. "Had enough of that crap." Casting her eyes across the room, she noticed a huddled form in the opposing corner, also wrapped up in a blanket, and to her surprise, staring right back at her with all too familiar greenish blue eyes.

Back up top, Mike, Cameron, Bridgette, Gwen and Zoey were all seated in a roughly shaped circle, deep in conversation. Additionally, the four rescued teens had an emergency blanket each.

"Wait, so Owen managed to… get back to the mainland?" Gwen exclaimed, a tone of surprise in her voice.

"Yeah, he was curled up on a collapsed picnic table just thirty feet away from the shoreline." Bridgette replied, nodding. "He apparently lives in Toronto, so one of his family members came around to pick him up."

"Wow."

"Sorry to interrupt, but do you know much about the others in the balloons?" Zoey asked as Bridgette turned to face her.

"Oh, not really, except… I did see several balloons float across the sky earlier today, but didn't think that much of them. Now that you mention it though, I think it was probably all the guys who are… well, missing."

The boat ride was fairly uneventful, but once fifteen minutes had passed, everyone was back on mainland and had been transported via bus to a hotel in central city, which was where the eliminated contestants had been staying, while Chris and Chef headed to the producers' office.

The first thing that was on all the contestants' minds was showering, and in five minutes most of them had cleaned themselves up and gotten into dry, warm clothes. Then, they all gulped down a simple meal of roast lamb with various vegetables on the side.

Later on, Zoey was seated on one part of a three seater sofa in the common room of the hotel, hot chocolate in hand and dressed in her pyjamas with a light pink hoodie overtop.

"So how do you think the others are going to get back here?" Gwen asked as she hobbled in, taking a seat on the opposite side of the sofa.

"I have no idea." Zoey replied, sitting up. "I overheard something about them having trackers on their ankles when we were still on the boat… but that's it."

"Yeah, I remember that. Chris and Chef went to collect the tracking devices, right?"

"Right. But as for now, I guess we just wait and see. Who knows what happened?"

Across the room, Heather was sitting on an armchair, wearing a soft blue dressing gown and her feet soaking in a hot tub of water.

"Brr, still cold…" She muttered, groaning. "How long is it going to take until I'm warm enough to move around? Until tomorrow?"

Sighing, she looked out the window next to her, noticing the storm clouds that were almost directly above the hotel. Additionally, there were several droplets of water on the outside of the glass, and they were slowly increasing in numbers.

Outside, a black limousine pulled up in front of the hotel, and Chris got out, a covered bundle held with both of his arms.

"Alright, let's get these things inside before the rain gets worse." He said as Chef got out from the driver's side, walking straight around to the entrance.

Bridgette, who had been patiently waiting in the hotel's lobby, noticed the two hosts walking over to the entrance, and ran off to alert the others.

Soon, those who weren't already in the common room had gathered in there, spacing out so a majority of the couches and sofas were taken up. Alejandro, who was, back on the boat, on the opposite side of the room to Heather, had a similar problem, and was also in a bath robe with his feet in a hot tub, yet on the far end of a long, curved lounger in one corner of the room.

Chris stood a few feet away from the doorway, a bunch of odd yet identical devices at his feet.

"Alright, so as you all know, most of your fellow contestants are stuck in balloons and are at unknown locations." He began as Bridgette walked in, going over to an empty reclining chair and sat down in it. "Well we've… sort of found where they're at, and so far, there's seven headed in the general direction of Chicago, but the other's strayed off and seems to be bound for either New York City or Philadelphia."

"So all that information is on… those devices?" Mike asked, briefly pointing at the devices.

"Yep, these are the tracking devices. One for each of you at least."

"Wait, there's six of us, but eight devices." Cameron interrupts. "Correct?"

"Oh… well yes, that is correct. Darn, thought there was enough of ya."

"Uh… I guess I could help out, if it makes it easier." Bridgette volunteered, raising a hand.

"Never mind then, we should be good. Sunrise tomorrow, you'll head off."

"Tomorrow?" Gwen echoed. "Can't we at least have a couple of days' rest before we get into this? And besides, we don't know who's going where yet."

"Hey, I'm not- ugh, okay, _fine_." Chris frowned in annoyance. "You can wait for two days. No later! Now get yourselves off to bed or something. You all look like you've just done an awake-a-thon."

"Gee, thanks." Heather deadpanned, scowling. "So do you."

Glaring, Chris strode out of the room, leaving the seven teens to mull over what could happen in the next few days. The rain then started to come down more steadily, so much so that it could be heard from inside.

"Well I'm… just gonna go upstairs." Zoey said tiredly, yawning as she got up. "It's been a really long day… oh, where do we sleep? Are there specific rooms allocated to each of us or something?"

"When I got here, that's how it seemed to work." Gwen replied, slowly standing up, holding onto the wall for support. "But I was only here for a night or two, and then it was back onto the island for the finale. So I guess it's still the same system. But I don't know which room you're in, though. Unless there's a couple of rooms with nametags on them."

"Oh, okay. Hey, do you need help getting up the stairs?"

"Uh… yeah, I probably will."

Eventually, the others start to move out of the room as well, and go upstairs to their bedrooms. And as luck would have it, Zoey found the door to a room with her name on it, as did Mike, only with his name.

Heather finished putting on a plain pink pair of pyjama pants, turning around to face the bed once she was done.

"Okay, where's the stupid electric blanket switch?" She muttered, shuffling over and getting down on her knees, only to find the switch already on, the pointer facing the '3'. "Well… never mind then, I guess." She pulled the covers back and slowly crawled under them, sighing as she did. "Ahhh… that's so… warm."

The rest of the hotel started to quieten down for the night, with most hallway lights being switched off except for the odd few, should anyone need to get up later on for some reason or another. Chris and Chef also left, going their separate ways to unknown locations, yet presumably to get some sleep.

As for Bridgette, she stayed at the hotel, and took a room with no nametag on the door.

Outside, Toronto itself was also dimming down – shops were closing for the night, lights were going off in residential areas, and most of the city's street lights shone brightly for anyone driving into the night.

Lake Wawanakwa was very quiet as well. The moonlight shone down onto the water, which was still full of various bits of debris, such as trees, picnic tables and other things. Rain drops punctured the surface, slowly but surely becoming more.

The only living thing left in the lake was Fang, who was swimming around aimlessly, seeming to be on a search for none other than Scott. Of course, there was probably going to be no success in that area. Scott wasn't even near the former campsite at all. And nor were the other missing contestants.

The tracking devices were the only source of knowledge about where they were. As Chris had mentioned earlier, most of them were headed in the general direction of Chicago, and one other was bound for New York City or Philadelphia.

But now, some of the balloons had drastically changed their course, and had gone way past Chicago. The only question that remains is… who was headed where?

xx

 **And there we have it, the first chapter! Hope you guys all enjoyed reading it. :)**

 **Next chapter will be up in two weeks' time, at best. Oh, and if you haven't already, check out my other new fic, Waking Up in Vegas. It stars the sisters from RR, but mostly Emma.**

 **Until next time!**


	2. Chapter 2: Somewhere Over The Border

**Hey guys!**

 **Welp, this was finished a couple of days early, but waiting for today hasn't really done much harm.**

 **Now, for this one, the missing contestants (well not really missing) get their part in the story. There's four locations where so many of them are at each, and they've been done into small… say, mini-chapters. Second one doesn't really involve much of the three contestants there, because it's all focussed on excited pre-teen fans (I couldn't really find a way to include the contestants until later on in the mini-chapter), and the last one is shorter than all the others – but there's only one person to write for it, so there was no point in lengthening it out.**

 **I do not own Total Drama. Just any OCs mentioned (who are in no way related to the contestants) and… this computer. XD**

 _ **Chapter 2: Somewhere Over the Border…**_

If there was one way to describe the situation, it would be quite simple. Of course, with eight balloons scattered around the central north part of the United States, there were many ways to describe it. But, even after having been confirmed to be generally headed to Chicago, some balloons ended up going in drastically different directions. Where, though?

xx

 **Location:** Badlands National Park, South Dakota **  
Contestants in area:** Duncan, Lightning

The atmosphere was silent. Nothing made a sound. Except for a lone bison bellowing before moving off, its intentions unknown.

Suddenly, a dark, yet small shadow made its mark on the grass below. It was only a matter of seconds before a loud pop echoed out, sounding much louder in the open air, and it all fell to the ground.

Bits of orange balloon were now scattered everywhere, either lying flat or folded over. In the middle of the mess, Duncan lay face-down on the grassy area, arms and legs spread out in a starfish position.

"Ugh, sick." He grumbled, lifting his head up. "Good thing I didn't die in there." He quickly leapt up to his feet and stretched out, taking a good sniff. "Beautiful fresh air, check. Any sign of life… wait, why am I listing off things? I'm not Courtney. Geez…" Duncan crossed his arms and looked around. "Where the heck am I anyway?"

The landscape just ahead was dotted with many sharply eroded hills, pinnacles and spires, some taller than others. Up above, the night sky was clear with the full moon shining brightly, albeit the fairly average temperature. A light, cool breeze blew through the area, gently ruffling the grass, as well as the leaves of a small bush nearby.

"Well this definitely isn't camp." Duncan muttered, flopping onto the ground. "What has weirdly shaped rocks that are really- wait a second." He looked up, furrowing his brow in thought. "Weirdly shaped rocks… damn it, I don't know. I can't be back home. Vancouver doesn't have this kind of stuff."

Suddenly, another loud pop echoed out, this time a bit more distant. Duncan got up again and turned around, trying to find the source of the sound.

"Whoever that was, it better be someone tolerable." He said, straining his eyes to look ahead.

Meanwhile, at least half a mile away, Lightning was sitting on a rocky surface in the middle of broken pieces of balloon, looking like he just swallowed a fish. Gasping, he quickly shook his head and jumped to his feet.

"Dang, Lightning's glad to be in a place with proper air." He remarked, grinning before looking around, his face then falling. "Wait a sha-second, this ain't camp. Where is camp?"

Looking ahead again, Lightning ran off down a fairly level slope, if not tilting slightly. He suddenly skidded to a stop at the edge of what seemed to be a much steeper slope.

"What the sha-heck?" He exclaimed. "How does Lightning get down there without slippin'?" Thinking for a few seconds, he sat down at the edge and carefully pushed himself off, but instead of having a smooth run, there were lots of bumps and bounces, nearly causing Lightning to fall off to the side several times.

Eventually, he slowed down at the bottom as it levelled out more, eventually coming to meet the grass.

"Phew." Lightning breathed, wiping his forehead as he then pulled himself up to a standing position. "Where the sha-heck is this then? Some weird place in Canada?"

Frowning in thought, he placed his hands on his hips and looked around, then catching eye of Duncan, who was standing about five hundred or so yards away.

"Oh! Lightning knows that dude!" He exclaimed, running off towards his former teammate. "SHA-YO!"

Further ahead, Duncan was just standing there, seeming to be not bothered about anything, until a set of footsteps came into earshot.

"Finally." He muttered, turning around, only to groan in disappointment. "Darn it."

"Oh man, Lightning's glad he's not alone here!" Lightning said, stopping a few feet away. "But first things first, ya know where we are?"

"Yeah, I've been trying to work that out." Duncan replied. "Something doesn't fit in, though."

"What do you mean? Camp ain't too far away, right?"

"Probably not, looking at the scenery and stuff."

"But… it's gotta be close!"

Duncan took another look around until a realization then hit him, and he sighed, shaking his head.

"What is it?" Lightning asked.

"Dude, I don't think we're in Canada anymore." **[1]**

"Oh… then where?"

"Somewhere in the middle of the Badlands… which is in the States."

"Sha-darn…"

xx

 **Location:** O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois  
 **Contestants in area:** Courtney, Lindsay, Scott

Three balloons slowly floated across the sky, eventually descending down towards the airport below, and passing over the main building.

Meanwhile, on the runway, one Cathay Pacific plane was not far away from beginning its taxi, and inside it, the passengers were soon to be going through the safety demonstration.

In one of the front row seats, a young blonde girl of about thirteen sat bolt upright, yet with her head tilted down. Earbuds were in her ears, the cord connected to her iPhone, which was resting in her lap, and was showing the last few minutes of the fifth season's most recent episode.

"Linus! Linus!" She hissed, elbowing an eleven-year-old boy with shaggy brown hair next to her.

"Kara, leave me alone!" The boy, Linus, whined, eyes glued to his iPod Touch. "I'm playing Sonic Dash!"

"And I'm watching the last scene of Total Drama's latest episode! Linus, you've just about missed it!"

"I don't care, I wanna finish my game!"

Kara sighed and turned back to her phone, only to gasp in shock.

"Linus!" She said in a slightly louder voice, still watching the screen. "Camp Wawanakwa's _sinking_!"

"Wait, what?" Linus paused his game and looked over to Kara's phone, just as the island itself was shown to be disappearing into the water. "Oh man, what the heck? That's crazy! How?"

Before Kara could reply, three loud popping sounds echoed out, followed by a few thuds coming from above.

"What was that?" Linus whispered, looking to the roof.

"Attention all passengers aboard this flight," a female flight attendant began via the intercom, "as most of you may have noticed, there were some strange sounds from the roof, so we are just going to get our ground staff to check out what's up there."

Kara looked out the window in confusion, spotting a large vehicle driving towards the plane, a ladder folded up on top of it. Suddenly, something orange was sent fluttering to the ground, followed by another – they were only just visible in the darkness outside.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh…" She breathed, her stomach tightening in excitement. "Linus, is this too good to be true or what?"

Sitting up, Linus peered out the window and gasped as another orange thing fell down.

"Nah, that's _totally_ a bit of orange balloon." He said, grinning. "Oh man, I wonder who's up there? I hope it's Duncan. He's awesome!"

The two continued looking out the window, yet getting no luck with seeing anything for at least five minutes, even when the ladder was mechanically lengthened out to reach the plane's roof.

Right then, the female flight attendant spoke up again with some amazing news.

"Okay, on the roof, there were three contestants from the Canadian hit reality television series, Total Drama." She announced. "Now I _do_ have a feeling that there are a few fans on board, so we will disclose their names until they get on the plane, as they will be joining us for the flight."

Kara squeaked, clapping her hands to her mouth, and started bouncing on her seat. Linus straightened up at the announcement, a slowly growing smile on his face.

"This… this is like a dream come true…" Kara choked out, just as she heard the back door opening. "Oh my gosh…" She hastily undid her seatbelt and stood up, turning around to look over the many rows of seats ahead.

Several other kids either around her age, older or younger had done the same thing, some even sitting with their knees on the seat.

"Oh wow, so many people!" A voice exclaimed from outside. "Hi guys!"

Cheering and squealing erupted from many of the kids and teens on board as Lindsay slowly walked around to the aisle, waving and smiling.

"I… I… YAY!" Kara cheered, sitting back down in her seat. "I can't watch, I just can't watch! It's too exciting!" She said hurriedly.

"What if I told you that Courtney was here?" Linus asked, still sitting on his knees and watching the happenings. Coincidentally, Courtney was the next one to enter the plane, closely followed by Scott. "Whoa!"

"Linus! Stop your stupid tricks!"

"Nuh-uh. She's actually here. I can see her!"

"Wait… w-what?" Kara peered over her seat, and gasped, spotting the former contestant walking down the aisle, now barely rows from her seat. "BEST FLIGHT HOME EVER!" She yelled. "Oh my gosh, wait until we do arrive at San Diego!"

"Wait, what?" Courtney suddenly exclaimed, having overheard Kara's excited chatter. " _San Diego_?"

xx

 **Location:** Milwaukee, Wisconsin  
 **Contestants in area:** Jo, Sam

A train slowed to a stop outside one of Milwaukee's smaller, suburban stations. Simultaneously, a balloon passed overhead, hovering above it for a few seconds until it popped. Bits of balloon went everywhere, and Jo went stumbling down to land on the train's roof.

"Oof…" She groaned, almost immediately pulling herself up. "Alright, where's this dump of a place then?" She looked around, her expression then turning slightly confused. "Doesn't look like Toronto. Definitely doesn't look like Saint John. Heck, if this isn't even Canada, then what?"

Frowning, Jo looked down towards the platform of the train station, and noticed a sign just to the left side of it, which she couldn't exactly read from such an angle, yet the one visible word was 'Wisconsin'.

"Ah great, I'm _not_ in Canada." Jo grumbled, crossing her arms. "Now what?" She stared ahead, just as another popping sound echoed around the area. "Well, looks like I'm not alone, at least." She ran off along the train, which was still stationary. "Hey, Couch Potato!" She called out.

Further ahead, Sam was slumped over on his knees, then falling down to face plant on the roof.

"Aw man…" He moaned, slowly lifting his head up and adjusting his slightly crumpled glasses. "Huh, where's this?" He sat up and looked around, frowning in thought. "Sure doesn't look or feel like Carman."

"That's because it's not." Jo said, leaping over from another carriage. "We're somewhere in Wisconsin in the States."

"Darn, we're in the United States?" Sam exclaimed, looking down.

Right at that moment, the train started moving again, and the two teens hurriedly dropped down to hold onto the roof.

"Quick, find the cargo carriage!" Jo shouted, peering through a small grate on the roof. "Wait, this one's it. Find an entrance!"

Sam hastily looked over his shoulder as the train picked up speed, suddenly spotting a large hatch just about eight feet behind.

"Found a hatch!" He called, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

"Great. Next place this thing stops at, we get in there!" Jo yelled back in reply.

The next train stop was, in fact, not for a good ten minutes or so. But just as Sam found himself slowly drifting off to sleep, the train started to slow down, jolting him awake.

"Oh man, finally." He remarked with a sigh.

"Get in the carriage!" Jo barked, carefully crawling around Sam and yanking the hatch open as soon as she reached it, leaping in immediately after. "Come on, move it or lose it!"

"Coming!" Sam called, pulling himself over to the open hatch and just about falling in, landing on a big pile of hay. "Well, as long as we aren't exposed to the elements, I guess we're good."

"Yeah, whatever, out of the open air, yada yada." Jo waved her hand dismissively, climbing up onto a tightly-packed group of hay bales. "I'm gonna get some sleep." She curled up and shut her eyes.

The train chugged out of Milwaukee, stopping at two more stations along the way.

Quite some time later, Jo woke up to the morning light streaming in from the hatch, which was now shut. She looked around and saw Sam slumped on the pile of hay, still deep in sleep.

"Alright, if there's a stop coming up, we're getting off, whether he likes it or not." She muttered, pulling herself up to a sitting position and standing up. Right at that moment, the train slowed down again. "Well, that's timing." Jo remarked, walking over to Sam and kicking him. "Oi, sleepyhead! We're getting off at this one!" She hissed.

"Wha…?" Sam mumbled. "Amelia, it's too early for games."

Jo groaned and kicked him again, this time causing him to suddenly sit up in fright.

"What's going on?" He asked, looking around.

"We're getting off, that's what's going on!" Jo replied as the train came to a halt. "How we get off, I've got no idea yet."

A back door then slowly dropped down, letting even more light in.

"Uh, there we go?" Sam said, sounding unsure as he got up.

"Right. Come on!" Jo grabbed his wrist and nearly dragged him out of the carriage, passing a bemused train driver along the way. "Okay, where to next?" She stopped once she got to the platform, letting go of Sam.

"Um…" He began, looking over his shoulder and noticing a sign, gasping in shock as he read it. "You really need to see this." **[2]**

"See what?" Jo asked, turning around. She spotted the sign, which showed the name of the train station, the city or town it was in and other information.

Three words stood out, however.

' _Little Rock, Arkansas_ '

"Oh, you gotta be joking. We're still in the States?" Jo exclaimed, slapping her forehead in frustration. "And I thought we were headed north!"

xx

 **Location:** Central Park, NYC, New York  
 **Contestants in area:** Sierra

It was late at night, yet there were still many lights glowing at Central Park. When you live in the city that never sleeps, it would be seen as normal.

Not for some, however.

A lone balloon slowly floated down, landing precariously at the top of a large tree. A fairly sharp branch suddenly dug into it, and it popped, freeing everything inside.

"AH!" Sierra stumbled out and grabbed onto a flimsy branch as the balloon pieces fluttered downwards. Unfortunately, the branch snapped, and she fell down to face plant onto the next one, which was much thicker and sturdier. "Ow…" She moaned, her limbs hanging loose.

Lifting her arms up to rest on the branch, she slowly pulled herself up to a sitting position.

"Oh em gee… where am I?" She asked herself, looking around. "This doesn't feel like Springhill. Is… is this even Canada?"

Gulping in worry, Sierra looked behind her and noticed a way down, albeit including a few tangled branches. Swinging her legs over, she slowly lowered herself until her feet could just reach the next branch below. She let go, only to stumble forward and miss it completely. Reacting fast, she hastily tried to flip round, but ended up landing on the grass below the tree.

"Ouch!" She exclaimed, rubbing her backside. "Oh… I gotta find someone who knows where this is!"

Merely minutes later, Sierra was running all around the area, which seemed to almost go on forever. Tree after tree. Fountain after flowing fountain. Not to mention the various park benches dotted here and there.

"There's gotta be something!" Sierra cried, coming to a stop by a brick wall with a series of arched tunnels going through it. "I can't… be stuck in a place I don't know… wait, wait, what's an area like this that is massive?"

Frowning, she looked up to the top of the brick archways, just as something caught her eye.

A dark yellow sign, reading 'CENTRAL PARK ZOO' in white writing.

"Central Park… I went all the way to New York City?" Sierra was stunned for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. "Ha, that's funny. But New York? How do I get home?"

Realizing that there was nothing much else that could be done, she sighed and slowly walked off, retracing her steps back to the tree she'd landed in – which in reality, wasn't actually that far.

Suddenly, Sierra felt a wave of tiredness wash over her, and she yawned, looking up at the tree.

"Okay, I guess I'll have to sleep in this thing." She eventually said, walking over and pulling herself up to the starting point of all the branches – a fairly flat area covered in leaves. She lay back on it, her head resting on the base of a branch, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

xx

 **And there we go – everyone's safe and sound, at least. I know that some of these may be a bit… out of timing with each other, but they're gonna be like that. Sometimes what happens in the mini-chapters won't all be in sync – like how Jo and Sam arrive at Little Rock the next day.**

 **Oh, references. I finally remembered them XD**

 **[1] – Decided to put a Wizard of Oz quote in this one, but of course having modified it slightly. I found myself laughing after realizing that Duncan was the one who said it.**

 **[2] – This is from The Croods, and has no changes made to it. Only just thought of this the other day.**

 **Anyway, that's all for now. It will be, as I said in the first chapter, updated after a fortnight (unless I can somehow kick my butt into updating weekly) but I hope that this was worth the wait!**

 **Until next time!**


	3. Chapter 3: The Hunt Begins

**Hey guys!**

 **Phew, finally finished this one. Was planning on completing it last night, but instead I was lying on the recliner with a migraine. It wasn't fun, I tell you that.**

 **Anyway… this chapter, the six contestants in Toronto start their journeys to wherever they need to go, and the other guys… are mostly stuck where they are for now. And, like I said the previous chapter, not all mini-chapters will have happened in the same time frame. The third one is a good example of that, if anyone is wondering.**

 **I don't own Total Drama, or any of its characters. I own any OCs mentioned here and there, and as always, they are in no way related to the contestants.**

 _ **Chapter 3 – The Hunt Begins**_

Exactly two days had passed since the contestants were rescued. During those two days, everyone got a chance to rest up for the big challenge that lay ahead of them.

By seven o'clock on the following day, all six contestants – and Bridgette – were all gathered in the hotel lobby, carrying small backpacks over their shoulders. Chris and Chef were waiting at the front, each of them carrying an armful of tracking devices.

"So how do we get to… wherever we need to go?" Zoey asked, threading her left arm through the other strap on her bag.

"Eh, train, bus, whatever you can think of." Chris replied with a shrug.

"Wait, we can't fly there?" Heather exclaimed.

"Hey, neither of you are gonna have that kind of money. And I _would_ put some towards it if I wanted to."

"Ugh, seriously…"

"Anyway, I guess I should hand these things out to you guys." Chris grabbed one of the tracking devices and threw it to Mike, then another each to Gwen and Alejandro. "Most of these guys are in groups at different locations, so find someone who's got the same location as you, I guess." He continued as Chef threw his to Zoey, Cameron, Heather and Bridgette.

"Uh, you said there were eight of these…?" Bridgette said slowly while examining the screen of her device.

"Yep – three people in one location." Chris looked at the last remaining device that he was holding. "Who's got one that's somewhere around San Diego?"

"Oh, I do!" Zoey hurriedly replied, looking up as the device was thrown to her. "Anyone else got the same location?"

"Um… yeah, I do." Heather said, walking over. "Great, how are we gonna get to the other side of the continent?"

Meanwhile, Alejandro stood on his own, looking slightly confused.

"Uh, Chris?" He called. "I think I'm the only one who has to go to New York…?"

"Oh yeah. There's one person all on their own." Chris chuckled. "Oh boy, that's gonna be a tough one, with just you doing it. Oh well!"

Alejandro frowned in annoyance and slowly walked off to the side, looking down at the device's screen.

"Can we go now or do we still have to wait for a bit?" Bridgette asked as she walked over to Gwen.

"Not just yet." Chris replied, shaking his head. "Oh yeah, and there is a time limit on this."

"Time limit?" Cameron exclaimed.

"Yes, time limit. From the moment you step out of this hotel… you've got exactly one week to find everybody and get your butts back here. I've got a new season that I wanna start, but not until I know that I do not have to worry about lawsuits. Now-"

"Wait, _do_ we get to go now or are we just standing around doing nothing?" Heather interrupted, sounding fairly impatient.

"Alright. _Fine_. You can all go!" Chris replied with an exasperated sigh. "One week! Remember that!"

The seven teens all ran for the door, tracking devices in hand and backpacks sitting safe and secure behind each of them.

It was to be a very challenging week ahead of them.

xx

 **Location:** Central Park, NYC, New York  
 **Contestants in area:** Sierra

A small group of birds tweeted away merrily as they flew around the topmost branches of a tree. Down below, Sierra had just woken up, and yawned.

"Eeeeyaaaaahhh…" She said, stretching out her limbs. "Oh em gee, I _totally_ need to find something to eat! I'm starving…"

The previous day, the park was fairly busy for no apparent reason. Whilst wandering around, Sierra stumbled across a mince pie sitting on a park bench, still in its unopened packaging. She broke it into two – eating one half right then, and saving the other for later. Fortunately for her, just half of that pie was quite filling.

But now there was, so far, no other food lying around, and groups of people were few and far between.

Sierra lay across a thick branch lengthwise, where she had a pretty good view of the park (well, what she could see of it). She watched the thinner branches slowly sway back and forth until a voice reached her ears, and she sat bolt upright.

"What do you mean by going out with another girl now? Erin, you know I'm not _that_ low!" A male voice said from afar, sounding quite desperate, and coming closer. "Erin, please, _she_ kissed _me_. I was sitting there minding my own business!"

Suddenly feeling excited, Sierra inched forward, eager to catch all the action she could.

"But it's _Pia Sutherland_. Queen of mean. Total fake. I'm not into those types of girls." The voice said again – it sounded like he was trying to reason with this Erin.

"Ooh, I love this!" Sierra whispered, grinning. "Oh, if only I had my smartphone…"

"Erin, no! Please, I'm begging you, it was nothing to do with me at all! Pia just decided to get the worst revenge on the stupidest thing. Oh man, I don't know what- NO! ERIN!"

Then, it all went quiet. So quiet it was almost deadly. A loud, heartbroken sob then echoed out.

"Oh man… no… WHY?" The voice cried.

Sierra felt a pang of sorrow in her heart and sighed. She knew that the guy – whoever he was – seemed to be telling the truth, and was trying his best to clear the air. Noticing that she couldn't see him, she tried repositioning herself, going slightly lower down.

"Huh… hey, who's up there?" The voice called out, causing Sierra to yelp in fright and swing round to the underside of the branch, her grasp then slipping and she tumbled down to the grass below.

"Ouch…" She moaned, now lying face up on the ground, the tree branch she was on not even moving – as if nothing had happened.

"Whoa, you alright?" The voice asked.

Dazed, Sierra looked up to see the face of a dark skinned guy hovering over her, looking quite concerned.

"Ergh… I don't know…" She slowly replied, bringing her hand to her forehead. "I guess so…"

"Uh, you sure? That was a pretty nasty fall. And… what's that on your ankle?"

"Yeah, I-" Sierra cut herself off and looked down at her feet. On her right ankle, an anklet-type brace was fastened there. "Oh… the trackers! Oh em gee, someone's probably out there to find me!" She squealed, sitting up.

"Trackers… huh?" The male repeated, sounding quite confused.

xx

 **Location:** San Diego International Airport, San Diego, California  
 **Contestants in area:** Courtney, Lindsay, Scott

It was a picturesque day in San Diego – eighty degrees, cloudless sky, light breeze… it was perfect.

Not so much for some, however.

Courtney wandered aimlessly around a book store, stopping to look at a book or magazine every now and then.

"Ugh, this is so useless." She groaned, sighing.

Several hours ago, she, along with Lindsay and Scott, arrived in San Diego with no money and no intention of hanging around at an airport for a long time. But, that was exactly what had happened.

The young girl on the plane, Kara, had stuck with them throughout the whole flight, all the way through the arrival gates, until she had to go off and find her parents, and her brother Linus.

Right now, the three former contestants were… pretty much stranded. No money, no way to get home, and no one nearby that knew them.

Finding nothing that interesting, Courtney went outside and slumped onto the floor, feeling tired, hungry and bored out of her mind.

"Why did I agree to being put in a stupid balloon?" She grumbled. "In fact, why did I even sign up for that show? It was nothing but a waste of time… and now I'm stuck in San Diego. No thanks to Chris."

Meanwhile, Lindsay was seated at a small table, reading through a magazine that somebody had left behind.

"Oh my gosh, she _totally_ shouldn't have broken up with him!" She muttered. "That's just like, _so_ wrong. He doesn't deserve it."

She turned over to the next page, which was, in fact, the last page of the magazine. She shrugged and closed it, then standing up and looking around.

"Ooh… what do I do next?" She asked herself. "I don't like being stuck here…"

Turning around, Lindsay stared wistfully at the nearby café, wishing she had some form of money with her. She sighed and walked off, wondering about what else there was that she could do.

On the other side of the café, Scott was just sitting on a lone chair, a folded newspaper sitting on the table next to him.

"Stupid Chris McLean and his stupid balloons…" He grumbled, crossing his arms. "Now what am I supposed to do?"

Sniffing, he twisted round in his chair to look out the nearby window.

Planes were slowly coming and going, each of them varying in size and shape. Smaller luggage trucks were driving to and fro carrying large amounts of suitcases and other large bags.

Somewhat lost in watching the happenings outside, Scott was suddenly distracted as a fairly loud beep echoed out.

"What was that?" He muttered, looking around. "Wait…" His eyes widened in realization as he bent over and pulled up the leg of his trousers, exposing the tracker loosely clamped around his ankle and the red light on it flashing.

Back by the bookstore, Courtney was still slouched on the floor when Lindsay walked over, and she looked up.

"Um-" Lindsay began, but was cut off as two loud beeps sounded out. "Huh?"

"Hold on a second…" Courtney sat up and stretched her right leg out, then spotting the tracker on her ankle flashing madly. "Lindsay, take off your boot."

"Take off my boot?"

"Just do it!"

Raising an eyebrow, Lindsay slowly sat down and pulled her boot off. Sure enough, the tracker on her ankle was also flashing.

"Oh… my gosh…" She whispered. "Wait, what are these for again?"

xx

 **Location:** Badlands National Park, South Dakota  
 **Contestants in area:** Duncan, Lightning

Most of the contestants had been staying a little while at wherever they were. But some moved off straight after they found each other.

Duncan wiped his brow with the back of his hand as he looked ahead at the sunrise. It wasn't exactly hot, but having been running and climbing for quite a while, it was enough to at least work up a sweat.

"Sha-come on!" Lightning called from ahead, stopping and looking over his shoulder. "Lightning ain't waitin' round for you to stop and rest!"

"Well you should slow down then." Duncan retorted, rolling his eyes as he continued on running. "Not everyone can have that much strength or speed."

Lightning looked up in thought for a few minutes as he waited for his former teammate to catch up.

"Huh, good point." He said simply, shrugging.

"Hold up, do you see that?"

"See what?"

"There's a heap of lights on the horizon."

Confused, Lightning strained his eyes to look ahead, eventually gasping in surprise as he noticed the small, clustered dots of light far away.

"Well I'll be sha-damned! There is!" He exclaimed. "Oh wait, you sayin' that there's a town or somethin' nearby?"

"Either that or it's a highway." Duncan replied as he finally caught up. "Town means we could find food and somewhere to at least sleep. Highway means we could possibly get a ride into the closest town. But right now, we just keep on heading towards it."

"Sha-got it, dude!" Lightning grinned, running off.

For the next hour or so, the two guys were just running, walking, climbing, doing whatever they were able to do in order to get closer to the light source. But, as the time went by, it slowly began to grow lighter, making the lights harder to see. Eventually, however, it was visible that it was a road of sorts. They followed the road for another half an hour until they came to a small country town.

"Well, there's not much to see here, but it's better than seeing nothing but grass and rocky hills." Duncan remarked, shrugging as he and Lightning stood at the edge of a gravelly road. "But first I wouldn't mind finding food somewhere."

"How're we gonna do that?" Lightning asked, raising a confused eyebrow.

"Unless some person rocks on up and takes us to their house, I have no idea in a place like this."

"Excuse me? Gentlemen?" An elderly voice called.

Duncan stepped back in surprise and looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. Peering over his shoulder, he saw a lady who looked to be in her seventies standing on the front porch of a long, yet small house.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" She asked, slowly walking down the steps and onto the grass. "I have savoury muffins cooking in the oven and two free bedrooms if you're looking for a place to stay."

"Oh, yeah! Yeah! I'll take a room!" Lightning eagerly replied.

Shrugging, Duncan nodded in agreement, before gasping slightly as something hit him.

"Crap." He muttered, looking down at his ankle, where a thin brace was, the red light on it flashing madly. "The trackers. Looks like help's on the way."

xx

 **Location:** Little Rock, Arkansas  
 **Contestants in area:** Jo, Sam

"Well damn it, and damn it again." Jo grumbled, flopping onto the pavement. "Back to no money."

She and Sam had been slowly going around Little Rock, waiting on street corners in hopes of getting money from passer-byers, so that they could get a ride home on the train. But after managing to collect only twenty dollars in the space of two hours, they were both getting fairly hungry. So unfortunately, the money that had been collected so far was being used up for food.

Sam walked out of the supermarket across the road with a bag of various items. Jo looked up and quirked an eyebrow in surprise.

"How did you get that much?" She called, standing up.

"I thought that we'd better stock up, just in case." Sam replied as he crossed the road. "Still six dollars left though."

"Eh, that could either get a couple of pies," Jo jerked a thumb towards the bakery they were standing outside, "or be put aside for train money."

"Uh… maybe we could just buy one pie and… share it, or something. That'd save three dollars."

"Oh, I don't know. What's in the bag?"

Sam knelt down and slowly pulled out the contents of the bag. A sandwich. A box of muesli bars. Two large bottles of water.

"Why only one sandwich?" Jo asked, gesturing to the sandwich.

"Well… we want to save money, and sandwiches were four dollars. The muesli bars were eight, and the water bottles were… a dollar each."

"Right… that makes sense."

"Oh yeah, and I got this." Sam stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out a folded-up brochure of some sort. He folded it out and put it on the ground.

"Wait… you got a train timetable?" Jo exclaimed as she got a closer look. "That should make it a lot easier once we get the money for a train."

"Yeah… you might wanna turn it over though."

Confused, Jo flipped the brochure over, and it showed a map of the USA (as well as the southern parts of Canada) and all the train routes.

"See, we'll need to catch a dark blue one or a turquoise one." Sam explained. "But… the only problem is, there's only one of each a day. Sometimes two with the turquoise lines."

"Oh…" Jo's voice fell flat as it trailed off. She continued looking at the map before noticing another problem. "Hey, which line _are_ we supposed to take? There's trains to and from New York and Toronto, but to get there from here, we'd have to go through Chicago and Cleveland, end up at Washington DC, catch a red line train to New York, and then go from there."

"I dunno… huh, wonder if there's someone looking for us."

"Of course there won't- wait." Jo stopped herself as she looked to her feet, pulling up the leg of her sweatpants, exposing the tracker. "You know what? There might just be someone. Unless Chris McLame can't be bothered looking for us."

xx

 **There. Third chapter all done and dusted.**

 **Next chapter should be up in two weeks' time, as per norm. Oh, and in the next few chapters, not everyone will be featured. Some chapters might just focus on three or four locations at one time. That does include the others (Heather, Zoey etc.) so… yeah, that's it, really.**

 **Anyway, until next time!**


	4. Chapter 4: There's Good in Everyone

**Hey guys!**

 **Well, here's chapter number four for you all, and it's all about good. There** _ **is**_ **a little bit of good in everyone… well, maybe not every single person on the planet, but you know.**

 **I don't own Total Drama, or the characters. I own any OCs mentioned, however most of them have minor roles.**

 _ **Chapter 4 – There's Good in Everyone**_

xx

Either on a journey, trying to get money or stay where they were for a little while, all fourteen contestants had something to take up their time, whether it did much for them or not. For the six contestants who had just left Toronto, it was to get to their locations as soon as possible. For the eight scattered around the United States, it was to either get as much money as possible so they could go back to Toronto, or to stay where they were until somebody came and found them.

And so far, there had been some interesting happenings…

xx

 **Location:** Toronto Amtrak Station, Toronto  
 **Contestants at station:** Alejandro, Bridgette, Gwen, _Mike, Cameron_ , Heather, Zoey

"Cam! The train's coming!" Mike called.

"Oh!" Cameron turned away from the train timetable on the wall of the building and ran over, soon enough spotting a large, double decker train slowly pulling in. "So it's here to New York, and then we book tickets to go to Washington DC?"

"Uh… yeah, that seems to be the easiest way. The tracker says that the people… that we're looking for are in Little Rock, so it'll probably be the best way to go anyway."

"Alright." Cameron looked to his right, noticing the rest of the contestants rushing around to get pamphlets with timetables and route maps on them. "Oh, I did get this." He said, pulling out a folded sheet of paper from his sweatshirt pocket, looking up as the train came to a complete halt. "Let's take the first carriage."

All the carriage doors then opened, and the two guys ran for the first carriage. When they got inside, however, both storeys of the carriage looked to be very full.

"Oh…" Mike said slowly, his voice trailing off. "I… think we should take the upstairs one. It doesn't look as busy." He walked up the stairs to the top storey.

Nodding, Cameron followed his friend up the stairs, but they soon both stopped at the front row of seats, looking around for an empty one.

"This is going to be a long trip." He eventually said, slowly walking down the aisle. "Unless we find a seat, I guess."

Frowning, Mike looked around at the seats close by. In the front seat on the left, a young woman with a very new-looking baby. On the right, an elderly couple, fast asleep. Behind them, two punk rock guys hunched over something and deep in conversation.

The train then started moving, just as Cameron walked back to the front.

"Do you think there'll be someone getting off at the next station?" He asked, grabbing hold of a pole to keep his balance.

"Probably." Mike replied with a shrug. "We could always check the downstairs one, but it's fuller though… we'll wait and see."

Ten minutes passed, as well as another station. And soon after, a third. Some passengers on the carriage got off, but they were mostly standing up, or gave their now empty seats to others.

Cameron wondered if there really was going to be someone who'd offer them a seat, until a voice spoke up.

"Hey, ya looking for a seat?" One of the punk rockers, who had spiky black hair with white streaks, asked. "We're gettin' off at the next station, that's all."

"Oh… yeah, we'll take it. Thanks!" Mike replied, nodding and grinning.

"No problem. Anyway, it'll be another five minutes or something."

"We can wait." Cameron said, smiling.

Sure enough, after another five minutes, the two punk rockers got off at another station, and Mike and Cameron took their seats.

"That's definitely gonna be better." Mike remarked, sighing. "I don't really like having to stand on trains – it makes my knees a bit sore after a while."

"There's always a little bit of good in everyone, whoever it may be." Cameron put in.

Suddenly, even over the noise of the train, a group of voices reached Mike's ears, one of which sounding quite familiar.

"I'll be right back." He said, getting up and slowly walking over to the stairwell.

Assuming it was to just look around a bit, Cameron sat back and looked out the window, watching the passing scenery.

Once he got into the stairwell, Mike could definitely tell that the familiar voice was Zoey – but what he was hearing didn't sound too pleasing.

"Nope, nope, not prostitutes…" He muttered under his breath, going down the stairs.

xx

 **Location:** Little Rock, Arkansas  
 **Contestants in area:** Jo, Sam

Sam plonked himself down on a park bench, biting into one half of an egg, ham and cheese sandwich.

"Man, wonder when we'll get enough money to buy food _and_ train tickets at the same time." He said quietly, looking up at the clouded sky.

For Jo and Sam, it had been a stressful battle trying to get money. Unfortunately, it wasn't coming very often, nor in large clumps. Every time they'd have enough to get them a couple of train tickets to as far as St Louis, both would be fairly hungry at the time, and the money ended up being paid for food.

It had been two days now, and hopes to get back to Toronto as soon as possible looked bleak.

Jo was a fair distance away, going for a walk while eating a chicken, lettuce and tomato sandwich.

"Right, if we don't get out of here soon, we can still blame McLean for all of it." She muttered. "Send him back to jail for all that crap."

She continued walking, thinking of any other possible ways to get money. Showing off a talent was one, but Jo had a feeling that just being good at sports wasn't really a crowd pleaser… and Sam wouldn't be that useful, even if he had a gaming console with him.

Jo then noticed one thing – all the people who had given them money were all mostly middle-aged or elderly, and most likely, didn't know a thing about Total Drama.

"Huh, bet there's some people in this place who were crazy enough to watch that damn show." She said, then suddenly stopping. "Wait… there probably are… where the hell would they be at though?"

Pushing the thought to the back of her mind for the time being, Jo kept on walking for another few minutes, then grabbing the second half-sandwich from her pocket, tearing away the cling wrap and chucking it in a nearby bin. She opened her mouth to take a bite, but stopped when she noticed something further ahead.

A small, hunched over figure sat by a large tree, covered in a brightly coloured cloth of some sort. Jo slowly walked closer, and stopped dead in her tracks once she got a glimpse of the figure's features.

It was a young girl.

"What the… what's a kid doing out _here_?" Jo asked herself, raising an eyebrow. "Only looks about five or six…"

Not sure what to do, she stood there for a few minutes, feeling slightly awkward.

"Alright, standing here's not gonna do anything." She eventually muttered, looking at her sandwich. "Oh, whatever, I'll give her this." She walked over and stopped a couple of feet away, not noticing that Sam was watching on in surprise from the park bench he was seated on.

Sensing the movement nearby, the girl looked up, brushing a section of her dirtied ginger hair out of her face.

"Hey, you want this?" Jo asked, kneeling down holding the sandwich out.

The girl looked slightly surprised at the offer, but eventually gave a small nod, taking the sandwich. Just as she was about to take a bite, a man's voice called out from some distance away.

"Lizzie! Lizzie!"

"Daddy?" The girl called back, trying to stand up, but failing. "Ow!" She yelped, falling back onto the ground with a sob. "My ankle hurts…" She moaned, starting to cry again.

For some reason not wanting to leave the girl alone, Jo waited for someone to come, yet stepping back a few feet just in case.

"Lizzie!" A younger male voice exclaimed, catching the girl's attention.

"Connor! Connor!" She cried, sobbing even louder as a boy of about fifteen ran over, kneeling down beside her.

"Dad, found her!" The boy shouted, scooping the girl up into his arms before standing up.

"I don't wanna go home. Mommy doesn't like me anymore." The girl managed to say between sobs. "I… I just couldn't get an A for my homework…"

"It's okay… she's gone. Dad kicked her out." The boy said soothingly.

Deciding that her work was done, Jo slowly walked back to where Sam was.

xx

 **Location:** Amtrak train leaving Toronto  
 **Contestants on train:** Alejandro, Bridgette, Gwen, Mike, Cameron, _Heather, Zoey_

After the train left the station, it was a fairly average ride for everyone, all in different carriages. But for Zoey and Heather, who were stuck on the bottom storey of the first carriage with no seats, it wasn't off to such a great start.

And to make matters worse, Heather had suddenly and unintentionally disappeared into the crowd, leaving Zoey alone and slightly worried.

"Oh… I hope more people get off soon." She said quietly, looking back towards the stairwell.

For the next ten to fifteen minutes, Zoey waited patiently for a seat to become available. But during that time, as some people would get off, more would get on and make it to an unseen free seat.

Eventually giving up, she went out to stand in the stairwell, but spotted another empty seat right at the end just as she got there, and went straight over to it.

"Finally…" She said quietly, sighing as she looked to the window.

"Psst, hey!" A voice whispered.

Flinching slightly, Zoey looked to where the voice came from, and saw two girls seated across from her. The one opposite had wavy blonde hair hanging loose around her shoulders, while the girl next to her had darker brown hair, only coming down to her chin.

"Oh… hi there!" Zoey said, smiling. "Is… there anything you need help with?"

"Yeah, hon, you see, we need another girl in our business." The blonde one replied, leaning forward. "Would you like it? The pay's real good."

"Uh… I don't know? I'm kind of busy with something else…"

"Oh, don't you worry about that. This will keep you busy for sure. _And_ we get a _lot_ of customers in New York. Trust me, I went there myself last summer, and the amount of guys I had fun with in one day topped my personal record!"

Gears started turning in Zoey's mind, and she realized that she was talking to a pair of prostitutes.

"Oh… um, can you leave me to think about that for a minute? I have to go upstairs to see someone." She said, standing up, but the blonde girl grabbed her wrist and yanked her back down. "Hey!"

"Okay, this offer you can't say no to." She hissed, venom dripping in her voice. "Don't try work your way out of it."

"Uh, Shayla, I don't think you should-" the brunette girl began, but the blonde silenced her.

"Leave it to me, Janessa, I've got it covered." She said, waving her friend aside.

"Yeah, cover your ugly hair before I chop it all off." Another voice snapped.

Gasping in surprise, Zoey looked up to see Heather standing right next to the blonde girl, a pair of large scissors in her hand.

"Oh, hey, can you help me?" She asked, pulling on Zoey's wrist. "Got a stubborn little thing here."

"No. No I won't help. One thing I will do though is tell you to move off and find someone else, because we don't have time for that kind of crap."

"Excuse me? You go bother someone else, you good for nothing bitch."

"Say that again and your hair's gone." Heather held the scissors up, glaring at the girl, who let go of Zoey and stood up. "Or go find a guy to get funky with instead."

"You know what? Why don't _you_ find a guy to get funky with? You look like that kind of person."

"Oh, I'd do that if I didn't have a boyfriend who's on the _next carriage down_. I wouldn't be bothered to do it anyway."

Albeit surprised at what Heather had just said, Zoey took her chance to sneak out, dashing straight into the stairwell… and crashing into Mike along the way.

"Zoey, what was going on?" He asked.

"I… I don't know!" Zoey replied, suddenly close to tears. "I don't know…" She fell forward, instinctively wrapping her arms around Mike's neck. "I shouldn't have sat there…" She mumbled before crying into his shoulder.

xx

 **Location:** San Diego International Airport, San Diego, California  
 **Contestants in area:** Courtney, Lindsay, Scott

Courtney woke up after a restless sleep, having slept on the floor next to a small retail store.

"Ugh... when are we ever going to get out of here..." She mumbled, slowly pulling herself up. "Oh, I'm starving..."

She looked around, wondering if there would be someone who was kind enough to spare her some money. Unfortunately, there weren't that many people around, and they all looked to be busy with what they were doing.

"What time is it?" Courtney asked herself, turning to the closest window. "It's... still dark? When did I even fall asleep?"

Still feeling confused, she looked to the ground in thought… yet she saw something else.

A still-packaged sandwich sat a couple of feet away from her, looking to be filled with meat and lettuce.

"Oh… is that meant to be for me or something?" She wondered aloud, picking the sandwich up.

Eventually assuming that it was probably either a kindly passer-by or a Total Drama fan, Courtney slowly opened the packet and pulled one half of the sandwich out.

"Oh, my gosh, Corrie, guess what?" An excited voice called from afar.

Courtney looked up and saw Lindsay running over, a couple of bags hanging off her shoulder.

"Uh… what?" She asked as her former teammate stopped a few feet away.

"There were like, five people who came here earlier, and they all loved Total Drama, so they gave us money!"

"Oh! Is… this anything to do with it?" Courtney held up her sandwich.

"Yeah it is! Uh… what's his name again… oh, the guy who came here with us? He bought it for you."

"Wait… _Scott_ bought this for me?"

"Uh-huh! You were still sleeping when he put it there!"

Courtney looked up at the roof, slightly dumbfounded. She knew that Scott had bought the sandwich for a reason. He could have done it just because he had enough money to get two – one for himself as well. But it also could have been him trying to impress her again… or even trying to make it up to her for the dramas that happened between them on the show.

"Carla? Uh… no, Cathy?" Lindsay called, sounding slightly distant.

"Huh?" Courtney shook her head as she was brought back down to earth. "Sorry, I was just… thinking, I guess."

"Oh, okay! Well, I think that he's like, trying to say sorry or something."

"Trying to… oh… you think so? Even after what happened with that list thing?"

"Yeah, of course! I've seen stuff like that happen _lots_ of times."

"Okay…"

"Anyway, I'm just gonna go to the bathroom and put on my new make-up!" Lindsay ran off, going around a corner after about twenty feet.

Courtney leaned back against the wall, slowly going over what she was just told. She didn't really understand the fact that Scott was possibly apologising. If anything, she should have been the one saying sorry, especially after the events of the eleventh episode of season five.

She did consider that it may not have been for that exact reason – of course she'd have to go and find Scott himself and ask him. Although it would probably end up as being very awkward, it was the only way to find out.

"Who cares what it was for?" Courtney said quietly, smiling. "There's good in everyone, even if it's only a small amount of good." And with that, she took a bite of her sandwich. "Ooh, beef, lettuce and chutney…"

Xx

 **And that's it for this week! Slightly shorter chapter, but I had no intention of making the mini-chapters longer than they already were, so here we are, I guess.**

 **Expect the next update after the usual two weeks. And this next chapter I'm pretty excited for… there's a bit of a heavy-hitting element to it.**

 **Anyway… until next time!**


	5. Chapter 5: Time For a Change?

**Hey guys!**

 **So, another Sunday (or Saturday), another chapter of this fic. As I said in the previous one, it does have a bit of a heavy-hitting element to it… not majorly so, but that's up to you readers to decide :)**

 **I don't own Total Drama. I own any OCs mentioned, and this computer xP**

 _ **Chapter 5 – Time for a Change?**_

At this stage and time, most of the contestants were starting to stray away from their teenage habits, being very close to adulthood. For some, it would be quite tough to give up something that they had going for several years, maybe even more.

Four contestants were all going through this very phase, each of them stuck on making a big change in their own lives… and they were all in the United States at the time.

xx

 **Location:** Train leaving New York, en route to Newark  
 **Contestants on train:** Bridgette, Gwen

After a somewhat tiring twelve and a half hour train trip from Toronto to New York, the contestants split off in different directions, one of them even staying in New York.

Bridgette sat back in her seat and looked out the rain splattered window, watching the suburban scenery slowly pass by.

"I can't wait to get on the Amtrak train… the views would be so much better." She said quietly before turning back to face Gwen – but saw her empty seat instead. "Oh… she must have gone to the bathroom."

Five minutes later, she saw Gwen walking down the aisle, but once she got closer, there was something visibly different – her eyes looked less pronounced, and her teal lipstick was completely washed off.

"Holy… crap, Gwen, what happened?" Bridgette asked, not too sure on what to say.

"I… don't know. I don't know." Gwen replied, shaking her head as she sat down.

"Do you want to talk about it? I'm open to anything, really!"

"Thanks… it's something that I've been thinking about right from the beginning of season five, but I just… didn't want to mention it to anyone."

"You can say what it is – it won't be that bad."

"Okay… this whole… goth phase," Gwen gestured to her hair and clothes, "I… I feel like I'm growing out of it."

For a few seconds, Bridgette was absolutely speechless. She hadn't been expecting anything as big as this.

"Whoa…" She eventually managed to say, her voice quavering slightly. "That's… pretty big. Wait, you said that you mentioned it to nobody?"

"No, no one. I didn't even talk about it in the confessional – it was way too private. And to be honest… it wasn't really something I wanted to bring up, wherever I was… but I guess I had to do it at some point."

"I know how it feels. I went through a really major phase change right when I'd just finished grade nine."

"Really?" Gwen's eyes widened in surprise. "What was it?"

"Well… before then, ever since I was nine or ten, I was a bit of a tomboy."

"Wait, you? A tomboy? I'm so sorry but that just doesn't sound like you at all!"

The two girls laughed for a few seconds.

"I know, I know, but I look back on it now and laugh because I was so different back then." Bridgette replied. "But yeah, once I hit fourteen, I started to want to hang out with girls a lot more. That was also when I started… well, liking guys, I guess is how you put it. I didn't push it way behind me though – there's still some great memories from those years that are really special to me."

"Wow… that would have been kind of hard to give up who you were for something else."

"It was, it really was. I used to be kind of shy as a kid, but that phase really brought out my confidence, and I started to get an idea of who I was and what I wanted to do. But I eventually came to a point where I just wasn't feeling that anymore. It's been a few years now, and most of the guys I knew back then I'm still friends with."

"That's really interesting. Well… there's a couple of voices in my head. One's telling me to not let go of this for another few years yet, but the other's saying that this is the right thing to do… I don't know." Gwen sighed and slumped over, resting her head on her knees.

Bridgette had never seen Gwen in such a state before, and it gave her a mixture of feelings.

"Well I guess I can't give that much advice right now – I'm still trying to wrap my head around it." She said, sitting up in her seat. "Oh my god, I have no idea what some of the others are going to say if they end up catching wind of it sometime later."

"Yeah… but for now I don't want to tell anyone else at all."

"That's alright. We can keep it between ourselves. Anyway… I think Newark's not too far away. There's just… three or four more stops until we get there."

"Once we get on the next train, I think I'll go and sleep. It'll be a long ride."

xx

 **Location:** Interior, South Dakota  
 **Contestants in area:** Duncan, Lightning

"Sha-woo! Sha-bam! Sha-bang!"

Lightning repeatedly kicked a soccer ball up in the air, sending it at least half a foot above himself before it came back down. After doing it a few more times, he caught the ball with both his hands and dropped it on the ground.

"Phew… now what?" He asked himself, looking around.

Over the past couple of days, Lightning and Duncan stayed in the small country town, which was called Interior. The old lady who took them in, Mariam, was sharp as a tack and had a brilliant wit for her age. She turned out to be a retired chef for a restaurant, and cooked them up mouth-watering meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Right now though, both guys were starting to think about getting back to Toronto again.

Lightning flopped onto the ground cross-legged and rested his chin in his hands, wondering what to do next.

A few minutes later, Duncan strolled past on the gravelly road, causing Lightning to look over his shoulder at his former teammate.

"Dude, where you sha-been?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Just walking around this place." Duncan replied with a shrug, not stopping.

"Oh… why's that?"

"Look, I don't really wanna talk about it, okay?"

"Uh… okay."

Duncan rolled his eyes as he continued on, going around a corner to the left. He'd been walking around the country town for at least half an hour, deep in thought about many things.

After getting thrown in jail for blowing up Chris' mansion, he was only in for about a month before he was let out for good behaviour… yet a part of the reason was his mother feeling sorry for him. During that month, Duncan had a very long think about his current life choices. He knew that, even though he had been in and out of juvie for a long time, it was due to be put to a stop. He already had a distant relationship with his father, which worsened slightly after the mansion incident.

Once he was let out however, he pushed it all to the back of his mind as he was called back for the season five finale. And of course, that all went haywire, with everyone who didn't get shot out of their balloons now scattered across the States.

On the previous day, it came back to haunt him, and it didn't seem to be going away.

"Ugh… man, what am I supposed to do?" Duncan asked himself, looking ahead. "I've done this crap for five years or something… but I can't just keep going with it. I wanna achieve something. Get a good job. Pfft, get a better _life_ , even."

A drop of rain suddenly landed on his nose and he groaned, looking up at the dark grey clouds.

"Great, it's gonna rain." He muttered, turning back. "This place was boring to walk round anyway. Huh, what _is_ the closest big town? Rapid City?"

As soon as he got back round to the street he was originally on, Duncan saw Lightning standing by the gate talking to Mariam about something.

"Oh, there he is! Hey dude, sha-get over here!" Lightning called, looking quite excited.

Raising an eyebrow in anticipation, Duncan ran over and stopped on the other side of the fence.

"What is it?" He asked, ignoring another couple of raindrops that landed on his forehead.

"I just got a phone call from my son, and he said that he's going to come here in his truck tonight, and offered to take you boys to Devils Lake in North Dakota." Mariam replied, pointing away from her house.

"Really? That'd be great! Man, one step closer to Toronto!"

"Glad to hear that. Now there's a few sandwiches waiting inside for you both, and I'll be damned if you manage to eat them all."

xx

 **Location:** New Rochelle, New York  
 **Contestants in area:** Alejandro

It was a dull evening in New York, with light rain coming down everywhere and predictions for heavier rain to come.

Alejandro was standing in a bus shelter, thinking about where he needed to go next.

"New York is a big city… so I may have to find a place to stay." He muttered, looking out to the road.

Frowning in thought, he pulled the tracking device out from his backpack and examined the screen. A bright red dot was flashing intermittently further south, but the name of the area (or any area, for that matter) was not displayed on there. However, there was one big standout that Alejandro noticed – a long, rectangular area smack bang in the middle of the screen, with the dot not too far away from it.

"Aha. Manhattan." He declared, grinning.

"OH MY GOD LOOK!" A girl's voice shrieked from some distance away. "IN THE BUS SHELTER, IN THE BUS SHELTER!"

"YOU ARE TOTALLY KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW!" Another screamed. "WHERE'S MY AUTOGRAPH BOOK?"

Stuffing the tracking device back into his backpack, Alejandro looked up, and saw four teen girls sprinting down the street, umbrellas flailing about madly.

"Oh, no…" He gulped, leaping up and running out into the rain, grabbing his backpack and pulling up the hood of his plain grey raincoat as he did so.

"He's getting away, he's GETTING AWAY. Not on MY watch!" One of them yelled. "Mariah, hold my umbrella!"

"But Tessa, you'll get wet!" Another shouted.

"Who cares? There's like barely any rain!"

Frantically looking around for somewhere to hide, Alejandro spotted an alleyway just thirty feet away, and ran for it, quickly turning into it.

"Hey, where'd he go?" One of the girls called.

"I dunno, across the street?" Another suggested.

"Let's go then!"

Alejandro breathed a sigh of relief as he heard their footsteps slowly become more distant.

"Ah, silly _chicas_. Probably were looking the wrong way." He said quietly, chuckling.

He suddenly went silent as he realized something quite big.

Normally, if there were girls running after him, in particular fans of Total Drama, he'd stop to talk with them in his usual charming way. But this time, Alejandro ran like his life depended on it instead. And it seemed very unusual to him.

"Hm… I wonder if being on that dreaded show changed me." He muttered, looking up in thought. "Oh… there's Heather, too."

After Alejandro was eliminated, he and Heather somehow managed to get off on the right foot with their relationship. With no competition or major prize in their midst, it caused them both to act quite differently. But of course, once the finale came round, and Chris threw a spanner in the works, they reverted back to their old selves.

Now, however, neither had talked to each other, and it had just been quiet and distant over the past few days.

Alejandro's thoughts then drifted back to season three, where he made his debut in the first episode. He eventually did admit to himself that he was feeling ever so slightly nervous about the competition, but eventually got into the swing of it.

Many of the things he had done on the show, whether it be as small as stealing Heather's tranquilizer balls or as big as causing the eliminations of nearly half the contestants, were a big hit with a lot of the audiences. But even though such acts probably wouldn't (and couldn't) be performed in real life, Alejandro did know that it probably wouldn't earn him any friends fast.

A frustrated yell sent him plummeting back down to earth, and he looked to see where it came from.

"Erin, how could you be so stupid?" A voice complained. "Of course he didn't go down that street. He went down the alleyway, and he's probably gone off to somewhere else, now that we've been all the way up and down here."

The four girls from earlier had returned, but seemed to have no intention of checking out the alleyway.

"What? I don't live around this part of town, and I didn't see the alleyway!" Another indignantly replied.

"Okay Erin, the rest of us didn't see him _go down_ there, but we saw the alleyway like a pink highlighter in the mud." A third put in. "It just had to be the street. To be honest, that was dumb, but not as dumb as you dumping Neil when he did absolutely nothing wrong."

"Tessa, please don't bring him up." The Erin girl whined. "And ask Pia!"

Deciding that he should move out soon, Alejandro stood up, waiting for the girls to get out of earshot.

xx

 **Location:** Upper Manhattan, New York  
 **Contestants in area:** Sierra

Unlike all the others, Sierra had a place to stay, and was not intending to leave until someone found her.

Two days ago, she was found in a tree at Central Park by a young male, who she now knew as Neil, and she was residing at his apartment until she was found. And during those past two days, Sierra had been taking it pretty easy.

One morning, however, when she was alone in the apartment, she was looking for something to do.

"Hmmm… what do I do?" She asked herself, walking through the living room. "Maybe… maybe write a blog post! Wait, no, I don't have my smartphone…" She sighed and plonked herself onto a black leather couch, looking up to the roof. "Oh, what _would_ I write about?"

Looking to her right, Sierra saw the large Apple computer sitting on the counter there. Neil had told her the previous day that she was free to use it if she needed.

"Ooh, yeah, I _can_ write one!" She grinned, leaping up and running over. Pulling herself onto a tall stool, she wiggled the mouse and the blank screen burst to life.

The main door then opened, and clicked shut. Knowing that Neil was most likely back from the supermarket, Sierra just continued on with what she was doing, clicking on Safari and entering the entire URL for her blog – she had memorized the whole thing, right from when she started it up back in the middle of the first season.

Once she was on there, Sierra scrolled through her sub-blogs, and clicked on the Total Drama All Stars one. Right at that point, her mind suddenly went blank. What was she supposed to write a post on this time?

"When was my last post…?" She muttered, her eyes drifting towards the bottom of the screen, where the most recent post was. "Holy… three weeks ago? What?"

Sierra was absolutely gobsmacked. She'd never had such a big gap between blog posts. And it made her feel slightly uncomfortable.

"Oh em gee, I gotta make one now…" She said quietly, scrolling back up to the top and clicking on the 'create post' button.

The page changed to a large textbox with a toolbar at the top, including various font formats. Sierra clicked on the textbox and hovered her hands across the keyboard, ready to write. But instead, they flopped back down to her sides, and she let out a frustrated sigh.

"So much stuff has happened, but I don't know what to write about? Aw…" She moaned. "Why is it so hard?"

Looking around, she spotted Neil in the kitchen, but he seemed to be busy on the phone. She turned back to the computer screen and stared blankly at it for a few minutes.

"What do I write, what do I write?" She asked herself repeatedly, her voice slowly heightening in worry. "Oh, why can't I think of anything?"

Deciding that she was probably better off leaving the blog post until later, she exited out of it, and went through previous blog posts, seeing if there were any comments from other users. There were quite a large amount of them, but Sierra still couldn't find the words to post a reply to any of them.

"Oh… I give up." She eventually said, closing the webpage and sliding off the stool. "Maybe I'm still half asleep?"

Shrugging, she walked out of the living and into the spare bedroom which she was using, and flopped onto the bed. She still couldn't work out why she was finding it so hard to write a blog post. In the past, it was one of the easiest tricks in the book.

One thing Sierra didn't notice, and possibly wouldn't notice until sometime later, was that she didn't even check her Cody blog – the one she would frequent the most.

xx

 **Well, that's it for now, and more to come soon!**

 **Oh, speaking of which, I will be going on holiday next week, and where I'm staying at doesn't have any wifi, so I won't be able to publish** _ **anything**_ **until I get back (and even then I still don't know when I'm going back home). Just letting you guys know.**

 **However, I will be updating this on the 14** **th** **(or 13** **th** **for some) so expect another chapter coming out very soon!**

 **Until next time!**


	6. Chapter 6: Stress Relief

**Hey guys!**

 **Sorry this is a day late – I was so stuck on the last mini-chapter that I didn't get it done until about half past eleven last night.**

 **Anyway… as the chapter title says, some people will be throwing a bit of weight off their shoulders, which will be good for them :)**

 **I don't own Total Drama, sadly. I own any OCs mentioned in this fic, but they're mostly filler characters.**

 _ **Chapter 6 – Stress Relief**_

It was a very stressful time, trying to get back to Toronto as soon as possible. Of course, some of the contestants were stranded where they were, and couldn't really do much until someone found them.

Meanwhile, on rails and roads, some of the other contestants weren't too pleased about having a massively long trip just to find some of their fellow cast mates. But all that was needed was a bit of luck or reassurance… depending on what it was for.

xx

 **Location:** Little Rock, Arkansas  
 **Contestants in area:** Jo, Sam

"Uh… you sure this is gonna work?" Sam asked, standing up.

"Oh come on. What do you think?" Jo rolled her eyes.

Another day had passed with no luck in terms of big money. Yet after talking to a homeless man that night, Jo had gotten an idea.

"Okay, it's gonna work, it's gonna work." Sam said, walking along the pavement with Jo not far behind.

Ten minutes later, they were outside a high school, each with a small box in hand.

"I bet that bell's gonna ring any minute now." Jo muttered, flopping onto the grass. "Whatever the time is… but it feels like it'll go off soon." She shrugged before a thought struck her. "Once we do get enough money to get out of here, where do we go off to?"

"Uh… I dunno, the quickest route is north so… St Louis first, I guess." Sam replied with a shrug, slowly walking over to stand by a tree.

Further inside the school grounds, a short, pale girl with ginger hair walked around the far side of a small pond, and stopped as soon as she saw Jo and Sam. She stood there for a few seconds before sprinting off, going up the steps to the building and bolting inside.

However, neither contestant saw her.

Sam pulled out the train schedule that he had picked up a few days ago and unfolded it, taking a look at the times for trains that day.

"Hey, there's one at five o'clock today." He said, catching Jo's attention. "If we do get enough money in plenty of time… I guess we could maybe catch that one."

Jo opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by a loud ringing that went on for at least five seconds.

"There we go, the bell." She eventually said, standing up. "There's probably gonna be a stampede of people coming out of that building in a few minutes."

The first few students emerged from the main entrance to the building, but none seemed to have noticed Jo or Sam. Then, a large group of students burst out and ran down the steps, headed straight for them.

"Well, here we go." Jo said with a shrug, stepping back a few feet.

Sam stuffed the timetable back into his pocket and picked his box up from the ground, slowly backing up until he was next to Jo.

Soon, dozens of students were crowded in a tight group a few feet away, all yelling and shouting at once.

"Alright, alright, quiet down!" Jo tried to shout over all the noise, but it was no use. Groaning, she yanked her whistle out of her pocket and brought it to her lips, blowing it long and loud.

In quite a comical fashion, the students slowly stopped their deafening chatter, telling all their friends to be quiet.

"Thanks, guys." Sam said with a sheepish grin.

"Okay, so you all probably know what happened a few days ago." Jo began. "We floated away from Camp Wawanakwa in balloons, and the two of us ended up here. Well… it was somewhere in Wisconsin first, but we hitched a train ride in the cargo hold and… here we are, broke and so far, have no hope of getting back to Toronto."

"So what yo sayin', y'all need some moolah?" A male asked from somewhere in the crowd.

"Yep, that's pretty much it. You see this box here?" Jo held her box up for everyone to see. "There's two of 'em, and we'd really like it if you all put in some money to help us get back to Toronto. Whether it's a hundred bucks or fifty cents, we don't care. It's money, and money's what we need right now."

It was silent for a few minutes until a short, scrawny male stepped forward, reaching out and dropping a five dollar bill into Sam's box.

Right at that second, everyone crowded around them, holding out fistfuls of coins and bank notes. By the time ten minutes had passed, both boxes were fairly heavy and most of the students had left.

"Well, I think we got enough to buy a lot of train tickets." Jo remarked, shaking her box and grinning. "Or bus tickets. I don't know. Maybe some food as well."

xx

 **Location:** Chicago Union Station, Central Chicago  
 **Contestants in area:** Gwen, Bridgette

It had been a fairly still day in Chicago, with minimal amounts of wind and patchy cloud here and there. The sun was now in its last stages of setting, casting an amber glow across the sky.

A double decker train slowly pulled into the station, jam-packed with passengers. Some were getting off at Chicago, whilst others were headed to places such as Milwaukee or Minneapolis.

On the last carriage, Gwen groaned and sat up, stretching her back. All the way from Pittsburgh to Chicago, she hadn't managed to get any sleep at all. Looking to the seat next to her, she noticed that Bridgette had only just nodded off, and shook her awake.

"We're in Chicago!" She hissed.

"Huh?" Bridgette slowly opened her eyes and sat up. "Oh, we should be getting off…" She grabbed her backpack from the floor and stood up.

Minutes later, the two girls were walking out of the large building that was the train station, backpacks hoisted onto their shoulders.

"So where do we go from here?" Bridgette asked, yawning tiredly. "Should we book another set of train tickets or…?"

"Uh… I guess that since we're both pretty much drained of our energy, we should find somewhere here to stay for the night." Gwen replied. "That'll be quite hard, though. Hotels will be way too expensive for us, and I don't have enough United States money to do that _and_ get to this place in South Dakota. It would be either one or the other."

"What about a hostel? I'm sure there's a few around here."

"That could work. Hostels are normally quite cheap, so we won't lose too much money too fast. Where to find one is the problem."

"Um…" Bridgette looked around, spotting a large, framed map on the side of a nearby bus stop. "There!" She exclaimed, walking over to it. "Okay… this has got a lot of hostels on it…"

Gwen quickly knelt down and put her backpack on the ground, opening it and yanking the tracking device out. She examined the screen, and sighed with relief – the red dot seemed to have not gone away from where it had been over the past few days.

"What's the closest one?" She called to Bridgette, who was running back.

"There's one called the Urban Holiday Lofts. It's a bit of a walk… but I've got enough money to get us a bus there." Bridgette replied. "We'll just need a timetable of some sort…"

"I think I saw a rack of brochures back inside the train station building, but I didn't see what exactly they had on them."

"Well I guess we should…" Bridgette was cut off as a bus slowly came to a stop right by the bus shelter, where a lone man was waiting. "Or we could take that." She said, pointing to the bus.

"Yeah… alright. I don't know where it goes to, but we don't really have much choice here."

The two girls ran over to the bus and got on it, taking a seat near the front. Gwen quickly pulled some money out of her backpack's front pocket and giving it to the driver, telling him where they needed to go. Fortunately, it was his last stop until his shift ended.

Bridgette relaxed her shoulders and sat back as the bus drove off, looking out the window. It was getting darker by the minute, so finding a place to stay was an ideal thing to do.

"Finally…" She breathed, sighing as Gwen sat down next to her. "I can get some sleep." A strange thought struck her and she looked up, creasing her brow in confusion. "I wonder who we're looking for. Chris never told us."

"Well I guess he didn't know who was where either." Gwen put in with a shrug. "Unless he attached cameras to everyone as well as trackers."

"I don't think Chris would have thought of that… didn't those balloons fly off pretty much… without warning?"

"I guess you could say that…"

xx

 **Location:** Bus en route to New Orleans  
 **Contestants on bus:** Heather, Zoey

The wind pounded at the windows of the Greyhound bus as it drove through a small town near Mobile in Alabama. It wasn't terribly pleasant for the passengers on the bus.

Heather looked up to the roof, sighing exasperatedly. She'd not long found out that there was another long bus trip in the mix, and she was not in the mood for sitting on a bus for nine hours or more.

"Ugh… stupid buses." She grumbled. "Why didn't we take a different route? Only one bus trip for both of the other ones…"

In the seat behind, Zoey looked up from the bus timetable she was looked at and raised an eyebrow. She too didn't really want to travel from Atlanta to New Orleans on a bus, and then do the same thing from there to San Antonio.

"The other routes were longer by several hours." She eventually said. "The one that went through Omaha and on from there was… somewhere over a hundred hours or something."

Heather looked over her shoulder, her eyes widened in surprise.

"A hundred hours?" She repeated.

"Yeah… and the other one wasn't that much longer – only three hours more than the one we're doing."

"Okay…"

"Oh, and we… might be finding somewhere to rest in New Orleans. I don't really know yet. But it is probably the best place – Houston's another seven hours more."

Heather turned back to face the front and looked out the window. Somehow, what Zoey had just said made her feel a bit better about the trip to San Diego.

Going back to the timetable, Zoey turned it over to look at the map on the other side, and put her finger on the dot with San Antonio next to it.

"Bus to Houston or all the way to there?" She muttered, creasing her brow in thought. "Houston means another break… San Antonio means a longer bus trip, but then it's straight onto the train after that… oh, I don't know."

Several minutes later, the bus arrived in Mobile, stopping outside a brightly lit supermarket.

Zoey put the timetable on the seat next to her and stretched her arms out, stiff from not moving much since halfway between Montgomery and Mobile. Grabbing the timetable again, as well as her backpack, she slowly stood up and stepped out to the aisle, following the queue of people out. Heather wasn't far behind, getting her wallet out of her backpack to pay for any food and drink they could possibly need.

Taking a deep breath of fresh air, Zoey sighed, pleased to be out of the bus and getting the chance to stretch her legs.

"Ooh… I really could do with some water." She said quietly. "My mouth feels so dry…"

Once in the supermarket, the two girls split up to look for what they needed.

Heather went straight to the deli and picked up a small salad in a container, then going to the drinks aisle and getting herself a large bottle of water.

"Finally, decent water…" She muttered, going around to where all the muesli bars were. "Okay… energy booster…"

Meanwhile, Zoey was further down the same aisle, a bag of assorted nuts and dried fruit clutched in her hand, as well as a large water bottle. Additionally, she was still thinking about where to take the next bus.

"San Antonio… might be better." She said to herself. "There'll only be short stops but… trains _are_ much easier to sleep on… yeah, that one."

Sighing in relief, Zoey put her backpack down and quickly got one of the tracking devices out. As soon as she had seen the screen, it was evident that the person hadn't gone anywhere. She pulled out the second one, which showed the same thing – a red dot still sitting on San Diego.

"Hmm…" Zoey quickly put the trackers away and ran down the aisle to join Heather.

xx

 **Location:** Upper Manhattan, New York  
 **Contestants in area:** Sierra

Sierra looked out of the massive window in the spare bedroom and sighed. It had been another day, and yet again, she was unable to think of what to write a blog post on.

For her, it was very strange, considering the large amount of things that had just happened. But now, with being stranded in New York and still recovering from being trapped in a balloon for a whole twelve hours, it was almost like she still didn't have the energy to do it.

It was worrying for a couple of reasons – fans reading the blogs could stop if there wasn't anything recent for such a long time. But more importantly, Sierra didn't want to have to stop her blogs altogether.

"Oh… why is this happening to me?" She asked herself, looking down at her feet. "I don't want it to happen! People want to hear about where the balloons went…"

Letting herself fall forward, Sierra grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest, tears stinging at her eyes.

She heard Neil jog past, and just brushed it aside. However, he had walked back to the doorway and poked his head in.

"You alright?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Um… I don't know…" Sierra replied, her voice slightly shaky. "It's…" She trailed off and sighed miserably, pulling herself up to a sitting position.

"Hey, I know we're… pretty much strangers to each other, but if you need a talk or something, I've got the rest of my day free."

Sierra knew that the only way to get her troubles out of her system was to talk about it. But she almost felt too emotionally distraught to do so.

"I'll… just be in the living room if you need a talk." Neil said, ducking out and walking off.

Lying back down again, Sierra turned onto her side, staring out the window. It was an overcast day outside, with no sign of dark rainclouds.

Sierra eventually fell asleep, and woke up a few hours later to a delicious smell. Sitting up, she looked over her shoulder and saw a plate with a steaming hot slice of lasagne on the nightstand, a knife and fork next to it.

"Huh?" She muttered, looking to the open door.

"Only thing I can remember how to make from home-ec back in sophomore year." She heard Neil call from the kitchen.

"Oh… thanks."

Sierra stared blankly at the lasagne for a few seconds before eventually grabbing the knife and fork, and starting to cut into it.

She then noticed that she was feeling a bit better after having a sleep. She hadn't really been doing that much since she arrived in New York, but her sudden emotions from her inability to write blog posts had run her down a bit.

Pushing the thought to the back of her mind, Sierra stuffed a forkful of lasagne into her mouth, and found all the muscles in her body suddenly relax at once – it was an amazing lasagne.

"Oh em gee…" She breathed after swallowing her mouthful, sighing.

Ten minutes later, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, the plate empty and her stomach full. Hearing the TV being turned on, she got up and slowly walked out of the room, taking a right down the hallway and into the living room.

Neil was seated on the far end of a black leather sofa, remote in hand and intently watching the screen. Sierra turned to look at it, and she gasped, clapping her hands to her mouth.

"It… it sank?" She choked out, feeling bewildered.

"Wait, you know what… this place is or something?" Neil exclaimed.

"Uh-huh. I was on there for a reality show!"

One thing that Sierra had noticed about Neil – he didn't seem to know what Total Drama was, and additionally, didn't recognize her from the get-go.

"Whoa…" Neil turned the volume down and sat back. "So you… still want to talk about this thing that's bugging you?"

Sierra looked away in thought for a few seconds. She still wasn't terribly comfortable with it, but having a nap and then later some food had made her feel much better, as if a large weight was taken off her shoulders. And she knew even more would fall off if she let out what she wanted to say.

"Uh… okay." She replied, walking over to the nearby armchair and plopping herself down on it.

 **And there we go, another chapter out of the way. Next one won't be up for a little while yet – maybe the 30** **th** **or 31** **st** **of this month at the latest, but I'm not sure yet.**

 **Until next time!**


	7. Chapter 7: Familiar Faces

**Hey guys :D**

 **Yeesh… updated this a few days late. Sorry about that D: had a slight cold thing earlier in the week, and I couldn't think much. That aside, here is the next chapter!**

 **I don't own Total Drama, or anything to do with it. I own OCs in this fic, but they're mostly filler characters.**

 _ **Chapter 7 – Familiar Faces**_

For some, they were slowly getting towards finally finding either a way home or their destination. Although it took them a while, it would pay off in the end.

Being stuck in the United States, most of the people around them they obviously didn't know. Whether it was for money, food or a place to stay, everyone that crossed their paths was unfamiliar. However, some contestants came across familiar faces in the most unexpected places…

xx

 **Location:** New Rochelle, New York  
 **Contestants in area:** Alejandro

The morning was much more welcoming, compared to the past couple of days. The sun wasn't hiding behind clouds of any shape or form, and was already making the city look a lot brighter than the glumness of the rain that was there when the contestants arrived in New York.

Alejandro, having spent the previous days trying to work out how to get to Manhattan at a decent time, was walking along the pavement, still feeling worn out.

The day after he arrived, he had gone straight to Manhattan, and was slowly gaining on where the tracker was located. Unfortunately, more female Total Drama fans had run into him, and he found himself back at square one.

He walked around the corner and came to an empty court, which had lines painted out to look like a basketball court.

"Ah, those were the days…" He said quietly, sighing.

Suddenly, a couple of excited whoops echoed out from the other side. Confused, Alejandro peered through the fence, and saw four males run in through the opposing entrance, one of them carrying a basketball. He focussed on the one with the basketball, who then eventually threw it to one of his mates.

"Is it just me or did I know him previously?" He muttered, looking up in thought.

Something really rang a bell about this guy – tall, dark skinned, spiked black hair… Alejandro was sure he knew him from somewhere. If only he could remember his name…

One of the other guys – a pale skinned, wiry blond with a Boston Celtics singlet on – turned around and saw him, recognizing him almost immediately.

"Whoa, there's something you don't see every day!" He remarked with a laugh. "Don't worry man, girls don't normally come to this place. You're safe here."

Alejandro stepped back slightly, but then realized what was happening – this guy seemed to be a fan of Total Drama.

"Uh… _gracias_." He eventually said with a smile, walking down to the nearby entrance and going in.

"Wait a second dude, I know you!" The dark skinned male exclaimed, running over.

"You finally caught onto that show or something?" A guy with curly ginger hair called. "About time Neil, about time."

"No, not that, Darren. I know him from somewhere else!"

Gears started turning in Alejandro's mind, and it finally came together.

"Neil, is it?" He asked, holding out a hand.

Neil stared ahead blankly for a few seconds before grinning and shaking Alejandro's hand.

"Alejandro! Man, I wondered if I was ever gonna see you again! Where did you end up in Canada?"

"It has been a long time, yes. And I moved with my _familia_ to Ottawa. Have been there ever since."

"Cool! Phew, talk about the unexpected! Hey, you still going on with basketball?"

"Well… yes and no, I guess I could say."

"Dude, you play basketball?" The wiry blond exclaimed, backed up by the nod of a tanned male with raven black hair.

"I… can say that I still know my way around a ball, so yes."

"Game on then, dude! Hey, where's Adam? Dude hasn't shown up yet."

"I didn't see him on my way here, so I dunno." Darren replied, shrugging.

A few minutes later, all five guys were going in many different directions around the court, playing a slightly uneven game of basketball. Alejandro eventually learnt the names of the other two – Zack was the wiry blond, and Mason was the tanned male with the black hair. And eventually Adam, a tall, African boy, arrived to join in, making the teams of three more even.

Alejandro found himself having that much fun, he momentarily forgot about the real reason as to why he was in New York. And as for Neil, he too didn't think to tell him that Sierra was back at his apartment, waiting for someone to come.

xx

 **Location:** Chicago, Illinois  
 **Contestants in area:** Mike, Cameron

Unlike New York, it was pouring down in Chicago, with everyone outside clad in raincoats or holding up umbrellas. Or both.

In the shelter of an internet café, Mike sat himself down at a small table, carefully putting his backpack on the floor as he did so.

"Okay, where are they now?" He asked himself, pulling a tracking device out of the bag. He gave the screen a quick look and immediately realized that the red dot was no longer at Little Rock – it had moved further north. "Oh… guess we don't have to go as far… wherever they're going to."

Meanwhile, Cameron was sitting at a computer, scrolling through a news website, looking for anything about any of the missing contestants. Unfortunately, all he could see on the home page was one about him, and all the rest, in various parts of the United States trying to find them.

"Maybe I should look somewhere more specific…" He muttered, going back to the search page and putting 'Little Rock news' into the search bar and pressing 'enter'.

A variety of results came up, and one in particular caught Cameron's attention.

'High School Gets Lucky Visit', the link read.

Cameron clicked on it and looked up as he waited for the page to load.

"Anything changed?" He called to Mike, who was walking over.

"Yeah – they're out of Little Rock and headed north… and it seems to be in the direction of St Louis." Mike replied, showing his friend the tracking device. "Is yours the same?"

"Let me check." Cameron bent over and pulled the other tracking device out of his backpack and looked at the screen. Sure enough, the red dot was out of Little Rock and a little bit further north. "Yes, they're the same." He replied, nodding.

"Alright. As long as they're not in completely different places, I guess." Mike looked at the computer screen and gasped. "Uh… Cam? You might wanna look at this."

Cameron turned to face the computer and nearly dropped the tracking device as he saw the cover photo of the article.

"It's Jo and Sam!" He exclaimed. "They must be who we're looking for!" He grabbed the computer mouse and scrolled down to see what it was all about. "It… seems to be that they'd been going around the town for several days trying to find money to get back to Toronto."

Mike pulled another chair over from the computer next door and sat down on it.

"So they're… out of there now, and… where are they headed to next?" He asked.

"They're stopping at St Louis first, it says here." Cameron replied, moving the cursor over a small paragraph of text. "But apparently they won't be leaving there until… late tomorrow afternoon."

"So… I guess we better go to the train station and book a ticket to St Louis then."

"Definitely. But I think we should go and find some lunch before we do that. It's getting to that time of day."

"Alright."

Cameron quickly closed the webpage and logged off the computer, then putting the tracking device back in his bag and hoisting it up onto his shoulder.

"And then from St Louis… should we go back the way we came?" He asked as he pulled the hood of his navy blue raincoat up.

"That's probably the only way to go from here, I guess." Mike replied, pulling the hood of his own black raincoat up. "It did say they'll be leaving Little Rock tonight… so I guess we leave around a similar time?"

"Yeah, I… don't think any other time would work. It'll be a bit of a wait, though. But for now, let's find somewhere to eat."

xx

 **Location:** Interior, South Dakota  
 **Contestants in area:** Duncan, Lightning

Duncan, having been on another walk around the small country town of Interior, sat down on the grass and stared ahead, for once in his entire time of being in the States feeling completely satisfied. Soon enough, he would be on a truck, off to Devils Lake in North Dakota. Although it wasn't that far, it was still one step closer to Toronto. The only problem was, where to from there?

Exhaling deeply, he looked over his shoulder to see Lightning kicking a ball in the air and running to kick it again as it came down. Neither of the guys could afford to be doing nothing, so they were making the most of their time.

The sound of a truck engine got their attention, as a large freight truck turned onto the gravelly road, slowing down to a stop just in front of the fence.

Duncan looked over his shoulder as the door opened, and he saw Miriam slowly come down onto the grass, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. Turning back around, he got a glimpse of the driver just before he got out, and he raised an eyebrow – the driver looked somewhat familiar.

"Where do I know him from?" Duncan muttered, looking at the ground in thought. "Eh, maybe not. I dunno." He shrugged, pulling himself up to standing.

There was at least seven or eight hours until they were leaving, but both Duncan and Lightning were quietly excited about it… and in terms Lightning's case, it wasn't really that quiet at all.

"Uh huh! Oh YEAH! Sha-WOO!" He shouted as he ran down to the other end of the gravelly road. "Lightning's not gonna be in the middle of nowhere tomorrow!"

Eventually, after a long wait, the two guys were seated in the back of the truck's cab, with several packed sandwiches from Miriam, a huge wad of cash from the driver, which they could use to purchase train or bus tickets, food and water, and a need for some sleep. They'd been on the highway for twenty minutes since they left Interior, and the tiredness was already starting to set in.

Duncan narrowed his eyes as he peered out of the window, watching the slowly darkening scenery pass by, with the sun setting behind it all.

"Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I do recognize you from somewhere, sonny." The driver said, quickly glancing over his shoulder.

"Huh?" Duncan turned away from the window, a feeling of shock and surprise washing over him – this driver even _sounded_ familiar to him. "Me?"

"Only one you in this truck, that right?"

"Well… there's two of us in the back…"

"Ah yes, true. Where you from then? Ya don't sound like a US of A resident."

"Yeah, I'm from Canada. Vancouver to be specific, I guess."

"Interesting… well, I'll be stopping to fill 'er up in a few minutes, so if either of you lads need a visit to the rest room then go for it."

Now Duncan was absolutely sure he knew the driver from somewhere. But unfortunately, it just wasn't coming to him.

Soon enough, they were at the gas station, which was a welcoming sight, with all its bright lights shining out from the shop.

Inside, Lightning slowly walked alongside the drink fridges, a five dollar bill in hand and looking for a decent sized water bottle.

"A-ha!" He declared, grinning as he eventually spotted one. "Sha-yeah!" He opened the fridge and grabbed the bottle from the top shelf, shutting it again and running over to the counter.

Meanwhile, Duncan had returned back to the cab after buying a copy of the local newspaper, and had a roof light on to read it. All the while, he was trying to figure out how he somehow recognized the driver.

"Wait… wait…" He said quietly, the puzzle pieces suddenly coming all together. "That guy was my old neighbour! Huh, he only moved out three years ago, and I couldn't remember him at first glance. Pfft, good going there."

After flicking through a few pages, Duncan put the newspaper down on the floor and stretched, yawning simultaneously.

"Man, I could do with some sleep…" He muttered, putting his seatbelt on and leaning back.

A few minutes later, the driver and Lightning returned to the truck, and the three were on the road again.

Duncan didn't end up getting a chance to talk to the driver some more – he fell asleep not long after they left the gas station.

xx

 **Location:** San Diego International Airport, San Diego  
 **Contestants in area:** Courtney, Lindsay, Scott, ?

It was another normal day at the airport, with people of all ages going in many different directions to wherever they needed to go.

Lindsay stood just outside a clothes store, nibbling on a small chocolate brownie as she watched the people pass by.

"Oh, I hope someone finds us soon!" She said to herself worriedly. "I don't wanna be stuck at an airport forever!"

Meanwhile, back in the check-in area, Courtney was aimlessly walking around, seeing if there was anyone who could spare them more money. But they all seemed to be busy with their own doings, and didn't even bother to look her way.

Simultaneously, another question was making her think hard – if they somehow managed to get to Canada, how would they go through customs without any passports?

"Ugh, this is going to bug me for a long time." Courtney muttered, sighing. "I guess I'll have to wait until it actually happens." She turned around and started to head towards the retail area, when something stopped her.

Further ahead, there was large group of what looked to be Italians. But that wasn't what had caught Courtney's eye. Amongst them, eyes currently glued to a phone, was a short, seemingly tanned girl with over-applied hairspray all through her hair, making it pouf out.

"That isn't… is it?" Courtney wondered. "Is that the Anne Maria girl from season four or not?"

Frowning in thought, she slowly walked closer to get a closer look – and sure enough, it was. Whether she should approach her or not, Courtney wasn't sure.

"Oh, I don't know." She said to herself, looking away for a few seconds. "Maybe… maybe I shouldn't…"

Just at that second, Anne Maria looked up from her phone and spotted Courtney standing about fifteen to twenty feet away. Raising an eyebrow, she quickly muttered something in Italian to a slightly taller woman, who nodded.

Not really focussed on what was happening, Courtney was surprised to turn back around and see Anne Maria walking over.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be missin' or somethin'?' She asked, stopping a few feet away.

"Well… I guess so, if being stuck here for days counts as being missing." Courtney replied with a shrug. "We haven't got a way home yet… and I don't know how we'll get through customs with no passports on us."

"We?" Anne Maria repeated. "Who else is here?"

"Uh… Scott and Lindsay. I haven't seen either of them for the past hour though."

"Wow… okay then. I… dunno if I can do anything about all this. Unless my papa will let me and my little brother and sister stay here for an extra three days."

"Oh, you don't have to give up your flight for us!"

"Nuh-uh, I will do that… if I can. You'll have people back where ya live worrying about you and stuff. Let 'em know you're okay. Oh yeah… where do ya wanna get to?"

"Well… I guess it'll be best to go to Toronto first…"

"Oh… my flight for tomorrow is to Calgary… that's a problem."

Suddenly, a young girl of about ten ran over from the group, looking very excited. She rattled off something to Anne Maria in Italian, which Courtney only caught bits and pieces of, but it seemed to be about a person called Alessandra.

The conversation went on for about half a minute more, until the young girl ran back to join the rest of her family.

"So… uh, if you don't mind me asking…" Courtney began.

"Oh! Yeah, about that." Anne Maria turned back around to face her. "My cousin has to go to Toronto as soon as possible, because her sister is about to have her baby and has no other family there at the moment."

"Whoa… so is her… partner not there even?"

"No, he… got killed in a motorbike accident a couple of months ago."

"Oh… I'm so sorry to hear that! But what are you saying, we might have a chance of leaving this place?"

"Uh-huh. Her papa – my uncle – is pretty wealthy, and he'll be happy to pay for three more tickets. He's really nice, if… ya wanna know." Anne Maria shrugged.

Courtney stood in shock for a few seconds, shaking her head a few times. She almost couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

"I… um, thank you so much!" She said hurriedly. "I'll… I'll be back in a few minutes, if not longer!" She ran off, going out of the check-in area and making a beeline for the retail stores and cafés down at the other end of the large walkway.

xx

 **Phew, done at last. Hope you al enjoyed it. (:**

 **Next chapter… I might try to get out this weekend, but I'm not sure how it's all gonna play out. Who knows though, just wait and see!**

 **Until next time!**


	8. Chapter 8: Striking Lucky

**Hey guys! :)**

 **Sorry this is updated so late D: had a bad case of writer's block for some of the mini-chapters. It's all done now though, so here is the latest chapter!**

 **I don't own Total Drama (please, do I look like I do? Lol.) OCs are mine, but they're mostly filler characters… and are in no way related to the contestants.**

 _ **Chapter 8 – Striking Lucky**_

Luck was a more or less hard thing to stumble upon, depending on the situation at hand. And of course, all fifteen contestants had their fair share of it every now and then, whether it be good or bad.

But when it was good luck, it seemed to come in various sizes – from as small as arriving safely at the destination, to as generous as running into an old teammate or opponent, and having a ticket home.

xx

 **Location:** St Louis, Missouri  
 **Contestants in area:** _Mike_ , _Cameron_ , Jo, Sam

A bus slowly pulled up outside a large shopping centre, and several people got off, all going either left or right down the street, some even going into the shopping centre.

Mike ran onto the pavement and stopped just outside the bus shelter, looking back to see if Cameron was coming. And soon enough, he carefully got off the bus, trying to unzip his backpack at the same time.

"We must be very close!" He called out to his former teammate. "I'm sure of it."

Kneeling down, Mike put his own backpack on the ground and unzipped it, reaching in and pulling out the tracking device. He quickly looked at the screen, and it was enough to tell him they didn't have very far to go at all.

"We'll only have to walk along several streets until we find them." Cameron explained, stopping a few feet away. "Unless they move away as we move closer. They seem to be about six streets away right now though."

"I don't think there's that much to worry about." Mike said with a shrug. "Both these and the trackers will probably go nuts as we get closer, and you know what Jo's like. She'll get straight into it and try to figure which direction to go in."

"Well… yes, that is true. But right now we'll have to go fast, and check the tracking devices as frequent as possible."

Soon enough, the two guys were running down the street, the bus driving off simultaneously. Neither of them knew if Jo and Sam would suddenly go in the wrong direction. Of course, they had no idea where Mike and Cameron were – or even who it _was_ running after them.

"So once we find them, we'll just be going back the way we came, right?" Mike asked.

"Most probably." Cameron replied, quickly glancing at the tracking device. "It is the quickest route, after all." He looked back at the tracking device, and suddenly skidded to a halt. "They're moving the other way!"

"Oh…" Mike slowed down as well. "Should we just keep following?"

"I don't know. We could do. Either that or go down the street just ahead. They appear to be heading in the exact same direction as us, which will just lead them further away."

"We could… take it slow going straight ahead or around to the first street instead."

"That… looks like the only way to go from here. Oh, and both the trackers are showing the same thing, right?"

"I… hope so." Mike quickly put his device next to Cameron's, and sure enough, the screens were identical. "Yeah, they're the same. We should still keep going though."

They set off again, this time at a slightly fast-paced walk, and going around the corner to the next street. All the while, their eyes were darting between the pavement ahead of them, and the screens of the tracking devices. For the first couple of minutes there was nothing – the two dots kept on going further and further away.

Frustrating as it was, they kept at it, not wanting to give up when they were so close. No success for another minute, until Mike stopped in his tracks as he noticed the red dot start to move the way it came.

"They're turning around!" He exclaimed. "Well… this one is, but still!"

Gasping, Cameron quickly looked at his tracking device, and also saw the red dot still stationary.

"Mine isn't… but this looks to be the point where we start running again!"

"I think you're right!"

"Lets' go then! There's only so much time!"

And they were off running again, down the street to find their former cast mates, and feeling grateful for the overcast weather instead of rain.

TO BE CONTINUED…

xx

 **Location:** Upper Manhattan, New York City, New York  
 **Contestants in area:** Alejandro, Sierra

Alejandro walked slowly down a street, holding the tracking device with both hands and checking the screen every five or so seconds.

"Yes... very close now." He muttered, smiling triumphantly.

After a quick breakfast at a small cafe, Alejandro seized the opportunity to catch a bus to Manhattan. And as luck would have it, there seemed to be no girls around. Or any that were interested in Total Drama, for that matter.

Coming to the end of the street, Alejandro crossed the road and went to the right, spotting several fairly tall apartment buildings just ahead.

"Now, it must be one of these..." He said, looking up at the buildings. "Only one way to find out." Quickly glancing at the tracker, he walked forward, raising an eyebrow in thought.

Suddenly, he heard voices coming from some distance away, yet they sounded quite near.

"But Zane-"

"Come on, Erin, no buts. You seriously mucked that one up, and now you've left one of my closest friends feeling really down in the dumps. And I hate to see such a cheerful person in that state."

Alejandro immediately recognized both voices, much to his surprise. The first one sounded quite like the Erin girl that led her friends up the street instead of down the alleyway, and the second one – which was pretty much confirmed – was Zane, whom Alejandro had met the previous day.

Looking to his right, he saw Zane standing on the other side of the road, facing a sulky girl (who looked to be one or two years younger) with blonde-streaked brown hair, dead straight and coming down to her shoulders. Her arms were crossed and her bright blue eyes were looking away.

"Okay, don't sulk about it. Everyone makes mistakes." Zane said, sighing.

"What mistake?" Erin whined, sticking her bottom lip out. "I _know_ what happened! I saw it with my own eyes!"

Not sure what to do, Alejandro just kept on going, all the while trying to piece together in his head the situation at hand. For all he knew, anything could have happened.

He stopped outside the second of the apartment buildings, where the red dot seemed to be on his tracking device.

"This must be it." He said quietly, looking up at the building.

But just as he looked back down, a battery icon with a lightning bolt in it flashed onto the screen of the tracking device, before going blank. The battery had gone flat.

"Ay, no!" Alejandro shouted in frustration, groaning. "It _had_ to happen now!"

"Hey dude, you need help or something?" He heard Zane call from across the road. "Neil's in that building if you're looking for him. Room 514. I dunno if he's up there at the moment though. Oh, and… just excuse my little sister. She's having a bit of a moment. A really drawn-out one, at that."

"I am _not_!" Erin protested.

Alejandro looked up in surprise. Neil was also in this building. If he found his apartment, maybe he could tell him why he was really there, and see if he had heard anything about a Total Drama contestant somewhere in the building.

" _Gracias_!" He called back in reply, running inside and going to the left, coming across three elevators. "Ah, yes. Finally, I am here."

A few minutes later, Alejandro was on the fifth floor, and waiting outside room 514.

"Well… I guess I should knock." He said, rapping on the door four times.

Just at that moment, he realized what Zane and Erin were talking about. A couple of days ago, Alejandro remembered one of Erin's friends mentioning the name Neil, and something about a break-up. It all seemed to finally make sense – Neil and Erin were dating previously.

Alejandro was so caught up in his thoughts, he didn't even take notice of the door opening, _or_ who had opened it. But an all too familiar voice snapped him back to reality.

"What the… Alejandro?" Sierra exclaimed, dropping a banana skin on the tiled floor in surprise.

It was awkwardly silent as the two stared at each other, both quite shocked.

"What's going on?" Neil called from the kitchen, prompting Sierra to look over her shoulder as he stepped out into the hallway. "Oh… uh, wait… wait a second…" He said slowly, eyes darting between them.

xx

 **Location:** St Louis, Missouri  
 **Contestants in area:** Mike, Cameron, Jo, Sam

"C'mon, slowpoke, keep it up!" Jo barked, ahead of Sam by ten to fifteen feet. "Wherever this person or persons is, we can't stop 'til we find them!"

"Coming..." Sam called back, puffing and panting as he ran. "Wait, hold up." He slowed down to a halt and looked at the tracker on his leg, which was beeping slower than it was merely a few seconds ago. "I… think we're going further away."

"Further away?" Jo skidded to a stop and looked back, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "No, we shouldn't be."

"Uh… I think we are. Darn, I wish I knew where they are exactly."

"Eh, I've got no idea. They could be walking."

"Can't we just… turn around or something? I dunno if this is getting us anywhere…"

Jo sighed, looking up at the clouded sky.

"You… er, did say that if we got no luck in one direction, then we'd go the other." Sam continued, shrugging.

"Alright. Fine. We'll turn around and go back the way we came."

The two turned around and ran back to the street they had crossed a few minutes previous.

"Right, across the street, and down to the other end of this one, and we'll go from there." Jo said after a quick scan of her surroundings.

"Uh… why don't we take one of the streets like this one?" Sam asked. "Just… one further ahead or something."

"No, we're going straight. Clear?"

Sam stepped back in surprise, and groaned.

"What if they're coming down one of those streets?" He continued, frowning in annoyance. "I think we should go down one.

Jo whirled around to face him with a glare, hands on her hips.

"Look, _I'm_ in charge, and what I say, goes!" She snapped, jabbing a finger at Sam.

The two stood in silence for a few seconds, both seeming to be fed up with each other.

"Then I'm going that way. By myself." Sam said, running off down the street.

Jo stared after him for at least a minute until he disappeared around a street corner, and she shrugged.

"Eh, better off without him anyway." She muttered.

"Jo! JO!" Sam yelled from far away. "Come here!"

"Alright, what is it now?" Jo asked herself, groaning. "I'm going straight ahead, not around the corner!" She started running down the street, crossing two others and stopping at the third. "If he thinks he can get me to change my mind, then he better think again." She grumbled, crossing the street and running ahead.

"Jo!" Sam shouted again – an excited shout. "Wait, don't! She's coming!"

"What's he found, another bus or something?"

Jo had no time to do anything else. Once she got to the next street, she turned down it, and crashed into a tall, lanky figure, causing her to fall backwards onto her back.

"Hey, watch it!" She yelled, sitting up, only to see that it was Mike she had ran into. "Whoa! When did you get here?" She exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Uh… five or ten minutes ago?" Mike slowly replied, unsure of the time that had passed.

Still feeling rather bewildered, Jo stood up and immediately noticed Sam ten feet away, standing next to Cameron.

"So… McLean sent you out, huh?" She asked.

"Yes. We've been on the road for… three days now." Cameron replied. "But from when we left, we had to be back by the time a week had gone past."

"Uh… why's that?" Sam asked, scratching his head.

"Chris wants to start a new season, but not until everyone gets back to Toronto. You know, lawsuits…"

"Oh. That stuff." Jo scoffed. "Pfft, I'll give him something to worry about! If he had those balloons tied down, we wouldn't be here!"

It was silent for the next few minutes, a light breeze starting to pass through.

"So… are we going back to the bus station?" Mike asked. "Or should we take the train?"

xx

 **Location:** San Diego Amtrak Station, San Diego  
 **Contestants in area:** Heather, Zoey

Zoey slowly opened her eyes to see daylight streaming in through the train window. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, sitting up.

It had a long, fairly stressful three days for the two girls, with very few stops between train and bus trips. On most of those trips, however, they did manage to get some sleep.

Pulling her backpack up onto the seat, Zoey opened it and grabbed the tracking device, taking a quick look at it.

"Oh… they still haven't gone anywhere." She said flatly. "Well I guess that _is_ a good thing." She reached over and pulled out the other device, which had an exactly identical screen. "This should be pretty easy then." She smiled.

"What… what's easy?" Heather mumbled from the seat across, opening one eye.

"Unless yours is different, these people are still in the same place." Zoey replied, holding up both tracking devices.

The train then started slowing down, and people around them started to get their things ready.

"Welcome to San Diego." An electronic female voice announced.

"Wait, we're at San Diego?" Heather exclaimed, suddenly wide awake. "Finally…"

Once the train came to a halt, the two girls took their backpacks and followed the long line of people out to the platform.

Heather quickly went over to a small shelter and took the tracking device out of her bag, looking at it and groaning.

"Ugh, is there anything labelled on this?" She grumbled, looking up. "How am I supposed to know where these freaks are exactly?"

Zoey was standing ten to fifteen feet away, also having the same problem.

"If there isn't anything labelled on these… then how do we know where they are?" She asked herself, looking between the two tracking devices. "Oh, I wish I knew…"

"And that was when I saw her outside the bookstore! I'm telling you, it was the best two minutes of my life!" An excited voice said.

"Wow, you are so lucky! I've never gotten to see her in person at all!" Another exclaimed.

Zoey raised an eyebrow and looked to her left, spotting three girls standing a few feet away from the ticket booth, deep in conversation.

"Well Nessa, you can now tell everyone at school that you met Courtney Greening from Total Drama at the _airport_!" A short, slim brunette squealed, laughing.

Right upon hearing that, Zoey froze. She immediately knew that the girl meant San Diego's airport.

"Could it be?" She said quietly, turning around to look for Heather. "Ooh, I hope there's a bus from here to the airport!"

Heather had, in fact, heard the entire conversation between the three girls, and was glancing between them and the screen on her tracking device.

"The airport… seriously?" She muttered, sighing. "It could have been anywhere but there!" She looked to her right and saw a bus parked on the side of the road. "There's always a bus… no, no more buses."

"I think a bus is the better option." Zoey said, walking over. "Unless you want to walk. I can go by myself."

"Uh…" Heather looked away for a few seconds. "Alright, we'll take the bus." She stood up and turned around, spotting several notices and timetables on the wall. "And there we go, tear-away bus schedules." She stepped forward to get a closer look. "One to the airport, as well."

"We should take it. Whatever they're doing, we still need to get there as soon as possible. Who knows, they might have gotten enough money to catch a flight to Toronto or somewhere."

"How would they do that without passports?"

"Oh… that's a good question."

xx

 **Phew, there you have it! Once again, sorry for not getting this out earlier.**

 **Next chapter… that goes back to the usual fortnightly deadline, except of course it'll be updated on a Sunday… or Saturday, depending on where you live.**

 **So, with that… uh, until next time! XD**


	9. Chapter 9: Dead End?

**Sorry, really late this time! My holiday really stuffed up my writing schedule, so it's put me a bit behind with everything.**

 **Anyway, here's the latest chapter, and I hope you enjoy it :)**

 **Don't own Total Drama, own OCs in fic (they're just filler characters)**

 _ **Chapter 9 – Dead End?**_

As the contestants either reached their desired destinations or headed off with their no longer missing cast mates, several happenings caused their journey to be delayed by some amount. With everything else going right for them, there would most definitely have to be something that went terribly wrong. And when the time limit starts to close in on them, saying that it was in a bit of a mess would be a massive understatement.

They've found their pots of gold. But now, some are going to find black coins in there somewhere.

xx

 **Location:** San Diego International Airport, San Diego  
 **Contestants in area:** Courtney, Lindsay, Scott, Heather, Zoey

Lindsay peered out of a large window, smiling. Today, they were finally going to Toronto.

"Oh my gosh, I can't wait to get there!" She whispered excitedly. "Everyone's gonna be like, so worried…"

Stepping back from the window, she slowly walked around several empty tables before going past several retail stores.

Meanwhile, Courtney was watching a large screen, which had all the flights due for the next couple of hours listed on it.

"One more hour… one more hour…" She muttered, clasping her hands together and grinning. "I can't believe it…"

"Can't believe what?"

Looking over her shoulder, Courtney saw Scott standing about ten feet away, also looking up at the flights.

"That it's only one _hour_ until we can finally go to Toronto!" She replied, pointing up at the screen.

"Eh. Nothing, really."

"Nothing? What do you mean nothing?"

"It's just Toronto. Not like any of us live there… right?"

"Yes, but _after_ that, we can most likely go home! _Home_!" Courtney sighed, looking ahead. "I'm happier to just get out of this airport, really."

The two stood in silence for a few seconds, not noticing that two other people were watching them from not very far away at all.

"Hey guys!" Lindsay said cheerfully, walking up to them. "Oh my gosh, it's Hannah and Chloe! They found us!"

"Hannah and Chloe?" Courtney repeated, looking around. "Who's… oh…" She trailed off as she spotted Heather and Zoey standing several yards away, both looking rather shocked. "Wait a second… if they're here, and we're… an hour away from catching a flight to Toronto… oh no…" She slumped onto her knees, shaking her head

"What's going on?" Zoey called. "Did we come at a bad time?"

"Uh… I don't know." Lindsay replied, confused as usual.

"Yes… sort of." Courtney put in, looking up. "We're due to leave in an hour!"

"An _hour_?" Heather exclaimed. "Wait, when did that happen?"

"Just yesterday. I bumped into… what's her name… Anne Maria at the check-in area, and she told me that her cousin had to go back to Toronto or something because her sister's having a baby. So… this cousin's dad, who's apparently pretty rich, paid for three more seats on a flight for us." Courtney gestured to herself, Lindsay and Scott. "I have no idea what we do now, though…"

"No passports either." Scott said, groaning.

"Oh yes, no passports… everything's just gone from amazing to the absolute worst…"

An idea suddenly struck Zoey, and she walked over, still feeling unsure about it.

"Uh… the only thing I can think of is have three of us," she gestured to all five of them, "to go back on this flight coming up, and then the other two… try to get on another one. I don't know how that can happen, though."

"Well… I don't know."

"Look, she's got a point." Heather put in, joining them. "I can't think of anything better right now, so it's that or nothing."

It went silent for at least a few minutes, with several teens and kids stopping to look at them before continuing on.

Eventually, Scott spoke up.

"Eh, it could work." He said with a shrug.

"But how?" Courtney asked, standing up. "Three of us don't have our passports here… and we can't give up that flight, because it _was_ pretty generous…"

Crossing her arms, Heather walked around the post to look at the screen, cocking her head.

"I can't see why some of us go in an hour, and the others go later." She said, stepping back a couple of feet. "Whenever the next one would be, that is…"

xx

 **Location:** Devils Lake, North Dakota  
 **Contestants in area:** Duncan, Lightning, Gwen, Bridgette

Duncan slowly walked along the pavement, a paper bag with several small quiches held in his hand.

"Huh, train should be here soon." He muttered as he crossed the road. "Man, feels like I've been in the States for ages now."

The train station soon came into view, and Duncan continued on at a jog, soon slowing to a walk as he got closer to the small building.

With the sun out and no sign of clouds, it was a good enough day to stand outside waiting for a train. The roads had also been fairly quiet all morning, which made it pleasant enough.

Lightning waited outside the building, arms crossed and casually leaning against the wall, a plastic bag with two large water bottles on the ground next to him.

"Man, Lightning's glad he's not gonna be stuck here for ages." He remarked, chuckling. "But when's the train sha-comin'?"

"If we're lucky, in a few minutes." Duncan replied as he stopped a few feet away, then holding the paper bag up. "Got a few quiches for the ride. It'll probably be a pretty long one."

"Oh, Lightning got the water, too." Lightning said, kicking the plastic bag lightly with his foot.

"Eh, might have a swig of mine now."

"Uh… yeah, sha-go for it."

Duncan bent over and pulled out a bottle from the bag, taking the lid off and drinking.

"I'm gonna head round to the platform." He said, walking off around to the other side of the building.

Looking away for a few seconds, Lightning shrugged and followed his former teammate, grabbing the plastic bag along the way.

At the train platform, Duncan was studying the top sheet of a pile of tearaway timetables.

"One o'clock… I think that's ours…" He muttered, quickly pulling a ticket out of his pocket and looking at it. "Yep, one." He stepped away and looked to his left, spotting Lightning coming around.

A fair skinned boy then ran around the building, a piece of paper in his hand.

"Uh… excuse me?" He said nervously, prompting Lightning to turn around. "Can you sign this?"

"Oh, you want an autograph?" Lightning asked.

"Well… it's for my sister, who's stuck in bed with a broken leg… and she has no idea I'm doing this…"

"Then sha-sure! You got a pen?"

"Yep." The boy pulled out a pen from his jacket pocket, passing that and the paper over to Lightning. "Gotta do this quick, cuz my sis might call me and ask me where I am."

"Sha-got it!" Lightning quickly wrote out a crude looking signature on the paper before giving it back to the boy. "Ya sure you want it on a piece of paper?" He asked, then passing the pen over.

"My sister won't care at all – It's your autograph, that's all that matters to her." The boy shrugged. "I gotta go now. Thanks." He ran off back around the train station building.

Lightning stood there for a few seconds, feeling slightly confused.

"Dude, I think the train's coming!" Duncan called. "I think…"

"Oh, alright! Sha-cool!" Lightning grinned, walking back a few feet before turning around to face the train tracks.

The two boys waited for a couple of minutes, until sure enough, a train slowly came chugging around a faraway corner, headed to the east.

"Okay, so we catch this one to… I dunno where, Chicago, and go from there." Duncan said as the train came closer, then catching some people standing on the pavement out of the corner of his eye. "And there's probably some others getting on here too."

The train soon came to a stop in front of them, and the doors opened. Duncan immediately got on, spotting one other person getting on a different carriage.

"Sha-yeah!" Lightning cheered, just as he spotted a blonde girl with her back turned on the pavement. "Hang on a sha-second, is that… someone from season one?"

"Dude, get on the train!" Duncan called. "No time to worry about other people."

"Come on, dude, Lightning saw someone kinda familiar!"

The doors promptly shut after that, separating the two boys.

"Aw, dude! Seriously?" Duncan exclaimed, banging his fist once against the window.

"What now?" Lightning asked, his voice muffled.

Before either could say any more, the train started moving, and both gasped in shock.

"Oh no, oh crap no…" Duncan muttered, bolting into the seating area and leaping onto a seat, yanking the window up high open. "Catch the next train headed this way, whenever it comes!" He shouted to a shocked Lightning, who was still waiting on the platform.

xx

 **Location:** New Rochelle, New York  
 **Contestants in area:** Alejandro, Sierra

"Oh em gee, I'm going home…" Sierra said to herself, looking out the bus window. "Well… not quite home… heheh…"

It had been a day since she answered the door at Neil's apartment to find Alejandro standing there. Now, the two were headed back to Toronto, with a tagalong too – Neil told them he would visit some family that he hadn't seen in quite a while.

A couple of seats in front of Sierra, Alejandro and Neil were having a hushed conversation about a rather… pressing matter.

"Man, I know, but… I like her, okay?" Neil said in a whisper, shrugging.

"You just… may have to be careful with it." Alejandro whispered back. "I'm not sure whether she's over her previous… well, I don't really know what to call it. But it hasn't been long, so maybe save it for some time later."

"Okay… hey, here's the train station."

Sure enough, the bus was slowing down outside a large building. Several people on board were already starting to pack up their belongings and standing up.

Alejandro grabbed his backpack from the floor and stood up, slowly going out to the now crowded aisle.

"So you say there's possibly a train to come in about ten minutes?" He asked, looking over his shoulder at Neil.

"Yep, unless it's coming at a different time."

"Alright. That should leave us plenty of time to get tickets."

Once off the bus, it wasn't long for an announcement to reach their ears.

"The two o'clock northbound train to Toronto has been delayed by half an hour due to mechanical difficulties. We apologize for the inconvenience." A male voice announced. "That's the two o'clock northbound train to Toronto, delayed by half an hour."

"Damn it…" Neil groaned, slapping his forehead in frustration. "Guess we _will_ be waiting for a while more."

"So it's coming at two thirty now?" Sierra asked.

"Yep, probably around there."

Half an hour of waiting later, all three had their hopes high for the train to come. But they weren't so lucky.

"The two thirty train northbound to Toronto has been delayed by half an hour due to mechanical difficulties. We have been in contact with the crew on board, and they are working as fast as they can to get the problem fixed." The announcement blared. "We apologize for any inconvenience."

"Oh…" Sierra's shoulders slumped and she sighed. "What do we do now?"

"Well… I guess half an hour would be enough time to find ourselves some lunch, albeit late." Alejandro replied.

"I think there's a supermarket nearby." Neil suggested, pointing towards the road. "And a bakery."

"A hot pie might have to do, then."

It was a quick trip to the bakery, which was a couple of streets away. But soon enough, they were walking back to the train station with packaged hot pies in their hands.

Sierra was the first to turn the corner onto the street where the train station was on, and picked up on another announcement that was being made. She gasped as she heard the last few words.

"It's been delayed again!" She exclaimed, slowing down.

"Again?" Alejandro repeated, groaning. "Ay, no…"

"By an _hour_ this time…"

"Ah crap." Neil sighed, shaking his head. "We can only wait, I guess. And… uh, I dunno how long we're gonna be here, so should I stock up a bit on food?"

"Yes, do that." Alejandro replied, nodding.

"I'll go and look at the timetable." Sierra said, walking over to the building.

Neil watched her for a few seconds before Alejandro tapped him on the shoulder.

"I did overhear her on the plane saying that she liked strawberry lamingtons." He said in a hushed voice.

xx

 **Location:** Devils Lake, North Dakota  
 **Contestants in area:** Gwen, Bridgette, Duncan, Lightning

Gwen peered out of the bus window, sighing as she saw the high, patchy cloud and the sun-kissed buildings.

"Well that's a big change from Minneapolis." She remarked, sitting back down in her seat.

"It definitely is." Bridgette put in, nodding.

After staying a night in Chicago, the two girls continued on from there, taking most of it by bus, except from Milwaukee to Minneapolis, which was on the train, and late at night. Now, they had arrived in Devils Lake, and were planning on catching another bus for the rest of the way. Because of this, they hadn't checked their tracking devices in a while – not to mention Bridgette's one going flat.

The bus eventually stopped outside a supermarket, and the girls were the only ones to get off.

"Okay, what next?" Bridgette wondered as the bus drove off. "Find a bus timetable?"

"I guess so, unless you want to leave later today." Gwen replied with a shrug. "But yeah, we probably should find one now anyway."

"First, I think that getting a bit of food for the ride wouldn't be that stupid, really."

Twenty minutes of walking and shopping later, Gwen and Bridgette walked out of the supermarket with two plastic bags, each containing a small packet of chips, a large water bottle, a box of muesli bars in one, and two packaged sandwiches in the other.

"Do you think we'll be done with all this in time?" Gwen asked.

"I don't really know, actually." Bridgette replied. "I guess we can say that we're not far away. Too bad the train doesn't go through this place in South Dakota… if it has a name…"

"It probably does. Just doesn't have it marked out on the tracker screen, which is pretty annoying."

"Hey, there's the train station. I guess we could see if it has a bus schedule."

"I'll check it out." Gwen slowly walked around the left side of the building, then stopping once she saw an electronic timetable flashing above the veranda – and it looked to be for buses. "There… quarter past one, half past one… either of those should be alright."

"Found one?" Bridgette called.

"Yep, and the earliest one is quarter past one!"

'Oh, that's a good time. We should take that one."

Gwen walked back around to where Bridgette was standing, moving the plastic bag in her right hand over to her left hand.

It was not for a few minutes until the chugging of a train came into earshot.

"I guess that's the next train for one o'clock." Gwen remarked, looking at her watch. "Phew, I did change the time. Ugh, time zones."

"I can agree with that." Bridgette nodded. "Hopefully we won't have to worry about them after all this."

Gwen looked over her shoulder and saw the train pulling into the station. A thought suddenly striking her, she spun her backpack around and unzipped it, yanking out the tracking device. She took one quick look at the screen, and noticed that the red dot was barely yards away from her.

"The train!" She muttered, putting it away and sprinting over to the nearest open train door, not realizing that Bridgette hadn't noticed anything. She leapt on and ran into the seating area, eyes darting around to try and find the source of the dot. "Okay, it's gotta be somewhere…"

"Dude, get on the train!" A voice called from the other end of the carriage.

Gwen froze, realizing that she knew the voice from somewhere. Putting her backpack down on the seat, she pulled the tracking device out again and looked at it. Unfortunately for her, the dot seemed to be outside of the train.

"Great…" She groaned, her head snapping up in shock as she heard the doors close. "No, no, no…" She leapt onto the seat and stuck a hand out the open window. "Bridgette!" She yelled as the train started to move. "Catch the first bus that comes here!"

Bridgette turned around and gasped as she saw her friend on the train, waving frantically.

"Gwen, no!" She shouted, running as fast as she could towards it.

"It's no use! Just catch that bus!"

Bridgette skidded to a stop and watched on in horror as the train slowly left the station.

"Oh no…" She breathed, shaking her head

On the train, Gwen sighed and banged her fist against the window, creasing her brow in frustration.

"Great, just great!" She groaned, looking around to see if anyone else was on the carriage – and as luck would have it, there was… if Duncan counted as a decent fellow passenger. "Crap…"

xx

 **Well, what a good time to be stuck in a few messes like that. Not really. xD**

 **Since my updating schedule is a bit out of whack, I'll have to update when I can. So the next chapter may or may not be out for a little while.**

 **Until next time!**


	10. Chapter 10: Bricks off a Crumbling Wall

**Oh my god, this came out MUCH later than I expected. Sorry guys!**

 **Anyway… I guess you know the drill by now. No ownership of Total Drama, any OCs mentioned are mine, yada yada.**

 _ **Chapter 10 – Bricks off a Crumbling Wall**_

With their cast mates stuck in the States, some of the other contestants were starting to worry about them. Of course, they all knew nothing about where all fourteen of them were, whether they (so far) had no way of getting out of their location, or were already on their way to Toronto with plenty of time to spare.

But back at the hotel, quite a few of the contestants were showing up, mainly to wait and see if their friend(s) arrived.

xx

Several taxis and a bus were pulled up outside the hotel, with some of the contestants getting out of them.

Geoff slowly got out of a taxi, looking around the hotel grounds.

"Man, I hope they're all okay." He said to himself. "Huh, have any of them gotten back yet?"

Meanwhile, Dakota stood a few feet away from the automatic door, arms crossed and her worried eyes cast downwards.

"You okay, girl?" Leshawna asked as she walked over, prompting Dakota to look up.

"I guess… just really worried about Sam…" She slowly replied, sighing.

"Come on, don't worry 'bout it. Everyone who's lost there's gonna be showin' up soon anyway."

"You think so? I heard that some were all the way over in San Diego or something…"

"Well… I dunno, but they'll be here soon."

"Okay, I guess so…" Dakota walked over to the automatic doors, going inside once they opened.

The rumbling of the bus leaving caught Leshawna's attention, and she spotted Beth and Tyler running over, both looking quite concerned.

"Has anyone come back yet?" Beth asked, hastily coming to a stop a few feet away.

"Nuh-uh, nothin' yet." Leshawna replied with a shake of her head.

"Oh…"

Eventually, all that had shown up were inside the hotel, the others being Owen, DJ, Dawn and Cody.

Chris then walked into the lobby, stopping once he saw the nine contestants waiting there.

"Nobody back yet." He said shortly, sighing.

"Yeah, we kinda figured that." Cody replied with a shrug. "But I guess we're all here to wait for them."

Chris looked away for a few seconds before slowly walking over.

"I can't start this new season. Not without the entire cast from season five stuck in the USA." He said frantically, tugging at his hair. "Think of the lawsuits..."

"If Alejandro or whoever it was went to New York, then he should be one of the first people back, right?" Beth nervously put in. "Whoever's with him, I guess..."

"Uh... how's the stuff with the new season going then?" DJ asked, trying to change the subject slightly.

"Final fifty auditions." Chris replied as he paced back and forth in front of the group. "Gotta confirm the top fourteen by tonight, but not if there's people still missing!"

"I... think that some are here now..." Dawn said slowly, watching a bus pull up outside.

"There are?"

"Oh my gosh, who?" Beth excitedly asked, running to the door. She peered outside, squinting at one of the bus windows, and immediately spotted an all too familiar blue bandanna tied around a head of blonde hair moving towards the door. "IT'S LINDSAY, IT'S LINDSAY!" She screamed, sprinting through the now open automatic doors.

"It's Lindsay?" Tyler exclaimed, eyes widening in surprise. "Oh man!" He ran out the door just as it started to close.

Outside, Scott was already standing off to the side of the bus, while Beth was hugging a rather shell-shocked Lindsay, who was on her knees and shaking.

"Oh my gosh, I was so worried!" Beth gushed as she pulled away, only to see tears starting to fill her friend's eyes. "Aw, don't cry! You're here now!"

"I... I... didn't know if I was ever gonna leave the airport!" Lindsay stammered, letting out a sob.

"Lindsay!" Tyler shouted as he ran across the taxi lane to the waiting bus. "Oh..." He slowed down as he saw the tears now streaming down Lindsay's cheeks. "Oh man..."

"I think she's just a bit shocked about finally getting here." Beth told him as Zoey got off the bus. "Oh, which airport was it?"

"San Diego." Zoey replied, sighing as she looked ahead. "Heather and Courtney are still coming."

"They are? And… _San Diego_?"

"Yeah, they had to catch a later flight, because one was already booked... which left an hour after we arrived. And… about being at San Diego… that's a pretty long story."

"Oh… wait, wouldn't some of you have no passports with you?"

"Yeah, how did that happen?" Tyler put in, bending down and putting a comforting arm around Lindsay's shoulders.

"I… still have no idea?" Zoey shrugged. "Somehow we managed to be let through security, even though I was the only one with a passport. There was just several questions and a body scan."

Beth looked over her shoulder, just in time to see the others still in the hotel lobby running outside to see the new arrivals, Geoff at the front of the small crowd.

"Is everyone okay?" He asked as all of them individually came to a stop in the middle of the taxi lane.

"Yeah, we're okay!" Zoey called back in reply. "And before anyone asks, Courtney and Heather are still coming. Just… later today. Maybe much later, but I don't know."

"You guys want to come inside?" Tyler asked as he and Beth helped Lindsay up to standing.

"That's probably a good idea." Zoey nodded. "I guess we just wait for whoever's coming next… and it could be anyone at this point."

xx

 **Location:** Cleveland, Ohio  
 **Contestants in area:** Jo, Sam, Cameron, Mike

It was a dull day in Cleveland, with dark clouds stretching across the sky, and rain expected to come later in the afternoon.

Inside a rather large cafe, Jo sat down at a round table, train schedule in hand. She looked at it for a few minutes, trying to figure out a decent time to head off to New York.

"Uh… found a good time yet?" Sam asked as he sat down opposite with a glass of lemonade and a Panini on a plate.

"I dunno, four?" Jo replied with a shrug, looking up. "Gives us at least two hours, and we know the station isn't far away from here."

"Four sounds alright." Cameron added, sitting himself down at the table. "If we have to, we could leave some time earlier. But I don't think we'll need to."

"Eh, it depends. Say we go there for that four o'clock train, or any train, really, and it gets delayed for some reason. Then we'd have to wait for a bit."

"Well… I'm not sure. Anything could happen, but just as long as we get to Toronto in good time."

Mike eventually came back with a sandwich, and dragged a chair over from another table. The four sat in silence for several minutes, studying route maps, schedules, or just eating.

"So we're going straight to New York from here, and then up to Toronto?" Mike asked after swallowing a mouthful.

"Yep." Jo replied. "Nothing about New York train times here, so we'll have to check that out once we get there."

xx

Since Zoey, Lindsay and Scott arrived, the atmosphere was slightly less tense for the contestants, and many of them felt relaxed knowing that three out of the fourteen in the States were safe and sound.

Several hours passed, with no other arrivals, even as it dragged on into the evening.

Zoey sat in her hotel room she had before leaving Toronto, staring ahead blankly. It was a couple of minutes before ten thirty, and no one had yet gone to bed, in case someone showed up unexpectedly. A curfew had been set for eleven o'clock, as everyone had agreed that it was rather stupid to stay up all night to wait for the contestants.

"I hope they _did_ get on a flight…" Zoey said quietly to herself.

"Guys, there's a bus outside!" Dakota shouted from down the hallway. "It's too dark to see out there though…"

Gasping, Zoey leapt up and ran out of the room, nearly running into the open door opposite.

"Whoops…" She said, turning left to jog down the hallway.

Downstairs, Geoff, Cody and Leshawna had gathered in the lobby, waiting to see if someone came in.

"Anyone else coming down?" Cody wondered, looking over his shoulder, as did Leshawna.

"I don't think so." Geoff replied, turning around and tapping his chin.

Right then, Zoey burst out of the stairwell, the automatic doors then opening, and a slight thud echoed out, followed by sobbing.

"Whoa!" Leshawna exclaimed as she whipped her head back round to see Courtney and Heather, the former sitting on her knees and crying into her hands.

"I… I made it…" Courtney managed to say, her voice slightly muffled. "Well… we made it…"

"Oh, girl, come here. You're back in Toronto now. It's all okay." Leshawna bent down beside Courtney and massaged her shaking shoulders, Zoey eventually walking over and following suit.

"Okay… five more… er nine to go?" Geoff said slowly, looking away in thought. "Yeah, that's right."

xx

The next day, everyone was up rather early, including the contestants who had just gotten back. Anxiety filled the air once again as they worried and wondered who would arrive next.

As the morning drifted on, Chris also got more and more stressed about if there really was anyone else to come, so much so that he called for a meeting with the producers.

Once it got to quarter to twelve, some were trying to find things to occupy themselves instead of constantly worrying.

Geoff sauntered out of one of the hotel's back entrances, tossing a basketball up in the air and catching it again. DJ followed him out, and the two boys jogged over to a basketball court.

"Man, I hope we do get someone soon." Geoff said as he bounced the ball a few times. "We already got five peeps back."

"Yeah, but they all came here from San Diego." DJ put in, sitting down on the mostly green turf. "I dunno though, next ones could be... er, who went to that place in the middle of nowhere?"

"Uh... I think Bridgette did, but I can't remember who the other one was."

"Okay... alright, let's play ball."

For the next few minutes, the boys were mostly shooting hoops, but did a few passes in between.

After passing the ball to DJ for him to shoot, Geoff checked his watch, and raised an eyebrow.

"Well, it's bang on midday." He remarked, not taking notice of the several sets of footsteps coming closer to the basketball court. "So far, still nobody."

DJ frowned slightly at the statement and threw the ball towards the hoop, and instead of going through, it bounced off the edge and flew through the air.

"Oops..." He said slowly, following the ball with his eyes, right up until a hand reached out to catch it... yet it wasn't Geoff's.

" _Buenos dias_ , uh, _tardes_." Alejandro said, quickly checking his watch.

"Hi!" Sierra said sunnily, waving.

"What the- oh!" Geoff spun round to face them, then noticing the third person standing behind. "Uh... who's that with you? If you... don't mind me asking."

"Oh yes, this is Neil." Alejandro gestured to Neil. "He's an old friend that I ran into whilst in New York. And Sierra just happened to be at his apartment."

"Uh... okay then! Nice to meet ya, man!" Geoff waved, DJ following suit.

"So... what's happening here?" Neil asked, looking towards the hotel. "Heard there were people missing or something."

"That's a... pretty long story." DJ replied. "I'm just surprised at how fast people are comin' back!"

"Yeah, it's like bricks off a crumbling wall!" Geoff added, chuckling.

xx

The rest of the afternoon saw no more arrivals, and hopes were starting to look bleak.

It was eventually dinner time, and not many people talked as they ate. All that could be heard was the odd clinking of cutlery on plates, and glasses being put down.

Dakota poked at her broccoli salad, sighing and resting her chin on her hand.

"Oh Sam... where are you?" She said quietly, putting her fork down.

Down the other end of the table, Geoff stared at his dinner, not bothering to touch it. He knew that Bridgette would probably come back, but he didn't know if she was on her way, or stuck somewhere.

That night, everyone went off to bed at eleven, not knowing what would happen the next day. But, merely an hour later, voices could be heard from the lobby.

Being the closest to the stairwell, Beth groaned and lifted her head up, rubbing her eyes.

"It's midnight… who's here…?" She mumbled, looking to the door.

Out in the hallway, Dakota stumbled out of her room, having heard the voices and deciding to go and see what was happening.

"Why… why did I get up for this?" She said quietly, adjusting her sleep mask, which was resting on her forehead. "Gotta go see…" Rubbing her left eye, she slowly walked down the side of the hallway, turning onto the dimly lit stairwell and going down.

Geoff opened the door to his room and poked his head out, shrugging after a few seconds and going back in.

Once she got downstairs, Dakota shielded her eyes from the light shining through the window of the stairwell door.

"So bright…" She groaned, blindly reaching for the door handle. "Wait, you push this one… that's right…" She pushed the door open, accidentally knocking the person on the other side over. "Oops…"

"Uh… what are you doing here?" Cameron asked, rubbing his head as he got up.

"Who's… what?" Jo ran around to look through the doorway. "Hey, game junko, found your girlfriend." She called, looking to her left.

"Dakota?" Sam exclaimed, eliciting a gasp from the person in question.

"Sam!" Dakota cried, running out of the stairwell.

Back upstairs, Zoey, who was still awake, heard the commotion from her room, and was out in the hallway after a matter of seconds.

"Wonder what's happening…" She said to herself, yawning as she slowly walked down the stairs, turning to face the open door once she reached the bottom.

"Hi Zoey!" Cameron said, waving. "I guess you made it back alright?"

"Uh… yeah, we did." Zoey replied, walking out and looking around. "What's happening here… oh, wow…" She stopped as she saw Sam standing next to the reception desk, his arms around a sobbing Dakota. "That's amazing! It's so nice to see them reunited. Dakota had apparently been worrying about him for days on end…"

It wasn't long until more people were in the lobby to greet the new arrivals, even if it meant they'd have to get out of bed for it. The atmosphere was lively for those few moments, despite everyone knowing that there were four more left to come.

 **Bit shorter this time, but I found myself at a decent enough finishing point, so I just left it there.**

 **Next chapter… I have absolutely no idea when that could come out, so for now just wait and see.**

 **Until next time!**


	11. Chapter 11: Little Choice

**Hey gu- alright, alright, I'm not dead! Just had a come-and-go writers block over the past couple of months. Right now though, I think it's gone :D**

 **Anyway… guess it's time to (finally) get down to business. New chappie, hope ya enjoy, yada yada, all that shebang.**

 **Do I even need to keep on doing the disclaimer? It's a bit of a waste of time, really… whatever. I don't own TD, but I own any OCs mentioned. Majority of them are filler characters, and are in no way related to the contestants.**

 _ **Chapter 11 – Little Choice**_

Hectic times flew past for some of the contestants, and it caused mistakes, holdups, delays of some form, and the most common one – hasty decisions. Ideas were clashing at a time where things needed to be done fast.

Everyone had their fair share of problems, yet the majority were quickly solved. Three stories, however, stood out. It was either a last ditch effort, something that had to be done before it was too late, or standing on opposite sides of the fence. But first…

xx

There was two days left of the week, including the current one. All the contestants at the hotel were still worried as ever, due to there still being four of them stuck in the states.

Dakota shut the door to her hotel room and locked it, then walking down the hallway with a pink suitcase lugging along behind her. She stopped at the stairs, just as Beth poked her head out from her room.

"Oh… are you going back home?" She asked, walking out.

"Yeah." Dakota replied. "I live in Toronto, so now that I know Sam's safe, I'll be going back to see my daddy. I haven't seen him since I was in hospital to get rid of my mutation."

"Oh wow… so I guess it was a success?"

"It was, and I… I cried when the doctor said that I was completely free of it. I still don't know how they did it… removing something like that seems almost impossible. Well… I guess I'm going now."

Beth watched on in silence as Dakota slowly walked down the stairs, then sighing and stepping back into her room.

Meanwhile, in a TV room, Geoff was sitting in the middle of a large sofa, remote in hand and flicking through the channels. DJ and Cody were both on nearby couches, not really watching what was on the screen.

"Man... this bites. I really wanna go home, but not until Bridgette gets back." Geoff said with a sigh, putting the remote down after stopping at a sports channel.

"Dude, I'm kinda feeling the same." DJ added, shrugging. "I'm not going home until everyone's back… even if I want to." He sighed and looked down. "I miss my momma."

Cody stared on in silence, thinking about several things at once. One that stood out to him the most, however, was the lack of 'attention' he was getting from Sierra. And it was a massive drop.

Earlier, the two had run into each other outside the hotel, and instead of pulling Cody into a tight hug, Sierra just giggled and said hi before running off, leaving Cody feeling rather confused.

Footsteps pulled him back to reality, and he looked up to see Courtney walking into the room. A few seconds after, Heather followed.

"Uh… any news?" Geoff asked, sitting up.

"No, no more people back yet." Courtney replied, sighing.

"Oh… dang…"

"Hey, how'd you guys get outta San Diego?" DJ asked out of curiosity.

"Oh, that." Heather said, rolling her eyes.

"I guess I could tell you what happened…" Courtney said slowly, walking over to an empty sofa.

xx

 **FLASHBACK  
Location: **San Diego International Airport, San Diego  
 **Contestants in area:** Courtney, Heather

"You seriously think we are going to get away with this?" Heather hissed, looking annoyed and nervous at the same time.

"Just shut up and follow my lead." Courtney whispered back, creasing her brow in frustration. "Besides, you're the one who _does_ have their passport, and we've gotten through customs here perfectly fine, so why should _you_ be worrying?"

"Ugh… whatever. Let's get onto this stupid plane."

In the past hour, Courtney had quickly made a call to Montreal from a telephone box, and managed to get all the passport details she needed from her brother, who was the only one at home. Not long after, she even found a fan who had two pictures of her, both of which had no autograph. Courtney took one and signed the other, leaving the girl feeling shocked but excited.

Now, she and Heather had successfully gone through customs at San Diego, and were due to board their plane.

Being a few feet in front, Courtney exited the gangway as she stepped onto the plane, quickly showing the air hostess her boarding pass before going to find her seat, which was the sixth row from the front.

"Four, five… six." She muttered, carefully sidestepping in front of the seats before sitting down at the window seat, letting out a sigh afterwards. "Finally…"

Spotting her former teammate in the sixth row, Heather quickly walked down the aisle and flopped into the middle seat, relaxing her shoulders.

"Better than a train, and _so_ much better than a bus." She said, sitting up.

Barely ten minutes after they had gotten on, with the flight safety demonstration happening in the middle of that time, the plane was in the air and headed for Toronto. In the first two hours of the flight, both girls had watched a movie each, and also eventually got their passenger arrival cards.

"Great, I don't have a pen…" Heather groaned, staring blankly at her card.

Raising an eyebrow, Courtney reached down for a small bag that she had managed to buy at the airport, and pulled two pens out of it.

"Uh… here's one." She said slowly, carefully placing a blue ballpoint pen on Heather's tray table.

Heather looked at it for a few seconds before muttering a slightly unintelligible "thanks" and picking the pen up.

Looking away, Courtney sighed and turned to her own arrival card, then going back into her bag and pulling out a piece of paper with all her necessary passport details on it.

"Okay…" She muttered, putting the paper down and picking the other pen up.

Another two and a half hours later, it had gotten darker due to crossing through four time zones, including the far west and mid-east.

Courtney woke up from a nap to hear an announcement, stating that the plane would be landing in Toronto in the next twenty minutes. She let out a heavy sigh and looked to her left, noticing that Heather was still asleep.

"She'll wake up with the landing." Courtney said quietly, snickering at the thought.

It wasn't long before the city lights were visible from the plane windows, and got closer with every second. Due to it being late evening in Toronto, the cabin lights had been dimmed for landing.

After five or so minutes, the plane eventually reached touchdown with a slight thud, and just as Courtney had thought, Heather woke with a jolt, and groaned.

"Ugh, can they not be any quieter?" She grumbled, looking out the window and realizing that they had landed. "Oh… right." She bent down and pulled her backpack out from under the seat in front, quickly stuffing her arrival card and passport into the front pocket.

After watching the large airport building slowly come into view for a minute, Courtney quickly grabbed her bag from under the seat, making sure that her arrival card and passport details were in there, and zipped it up.

Once the plane came to a stop, all the passengers on board unplugged their seatbelts and started to gather their things, those at the very front standing up as the door was opened.

Heather slung her bag over her shoulder and stood up, waiting in front of the empty aisle seat until she found a gap in the line. Courtney soon followed suit, having to wait for a middle-aged couple to walk past before she could get out. As soon as she did get onto the gangway, she started to run, not bothering if she was tired.

"Wait up!" Heather called from several feet away, running after her.

The two girls ran into the airport proper, and didn't stop running until they eventually got to customs.

Knowing that she had no problem with getting through, Heather went straight to get her passport checked and stamped, as well as hand her arrival card over. Once she was done, she waited on the other side for Courtney, who had been held back a bit due to not having a physical passport with her.

"Ugh, knew this would happen at some point…" Heather groaned, rolling her eyes and looking away.

But to her surprise, a few minutes later, Courtney had passed through customs, and was already heading towards the baggage claim area.

"Well… I guess it did work…" Heather muttered, following at a jog to catch up.

xx

"So we headed through baggage claim, and went to find a bus… which we did find, and now… now we're here." Courtney finished, shrugging.

"Whoa… uh, how did you pay for the flight?" Cody asked.

"Same way as how we got the original one. I'm still not sure how we managed that though."

"Oh… okay."

Standing up, DJ walked over to the nearby window with a raised eyebrow, hoping to see one of the four yet to come standing outside. Unfortunately, the only people out there were Beth and Lindsay, both sitting cross-legged on the grass under a tree and talking.

"Man, where are they?" He wondered, stepping back with a disappointed sigh.

"Dude… I dunno." Geoff replied, looking down.

xx

 **Location:** Chicago Union Station, Central Chicago  
 **Contestants in area:** Gwen, Duncan

Once again, rain was bucketing down in Chicago, accompanied by fairly strong winds, making it even more miserable.

Gwen stared out of the rain-splattered window, just in time to see the train slowly coming to a stop outside the station. She reached down and pulled her bag out from under the seat in front and stood up, pulling the hood of her raincoat over her head.

"Just when it couldn't get any worse." She muttered with a sigh, looking out the window once again and noticing the slowly growing puddles on the platform. "Separated from Bridgette, huge train delay in Minneapolis, and now it's pouring down." The doors then opened, and she quickly walked out, running through the rain towards the main building and darting inside.

The station was rather busy for a wet day, with the majority of the people inside the building taking shelter from the torrential rain. However, a reasonable amount were waiting for trains to arrive, whether they were catching them or picking someone up who was on a train.

Sitting down on a bench, Gwen looked to her right, spotting Duncan leaning against a wall some distance away. She rolled her eyes, knowing that as awkward as it'd end up, they would have to converse at some point – most likely about what train they were catching next. She stared ahead for a few minutes, lost in thought about what would happen once they finally did get back to Toronto – and back to their home town, which by some coincidence was Vancouver. Gwen was so deep in thought, she barely heard the few words spoken to her.

"Are we catching the next train?"

Gwen flinched slightly and shook her head, then casting an annoyed glance in Duncan's direction.

"I don't know, when is the next train? Got a schedule?" She questioned, quirking an eyebrow.

"Well I thought you'd have one."

"Then no I don't, smarty pants. Get one yourself. Or check the screen thing."

Duncan looked away with an irritated expression before slowly walking off to a large screen next to the main entrance, which showed timetables for the rest of that day, as well as the next.

"There's one in… twenty minutes…?" He muttered in surprise, raising an eyebrow. "And then one two and a half hours later… first one then."

Meanwhile, Gwen had gotten up and taken a route map from a nearby stand, and was carefully examining it.

"So… go through Cleveland, then Albany, and straight up to Toronto… that's probably the best route to take, if we want to get there quickly." She said quietly, looking over her shoulder. "Better be a train coming by that's on that route." Folding the route map back up, she jogged towards the large screen, eventually spotting a Cleveland-Albany-Toronto line that left in two and a half hours' time. "There."

Having heard her footsteps, Duncan quickly looked over his shoulder as Gwen slowed down to a stop several feet away.

"There's one that leaves in twenty minutes." He said briefly, gesturing to the screen as he stepped forward to take a closer look. "It… goes round through the capital or something."

"Well that's out of the question then." Gwen replied, crossing her arms. "It'll take a lot longer than going straight through Cleveland and Albany before going up to Toronto. "I know it leaves later, but it'll be a much quicker ride, if you want to get a ticket back to Vancouver after that."

"Uh, no, I'd rather take a train coming sooner than later, especially with the rain here."

"Well it'll be a much longer route, and I'd really like to get the quicker one, even if it means waiting around for a bit."

"With that rain outside? How do we get from here to a café or something?"

Gwen sighed and looked up to the roof, deciding that she had to hammer it in.

"Alright, we're on a tight schedule here," she began, "Chris gave us a week to do this, starting at the beginning of the week, and it's now Saturday. It took me and Bridgette nearly a _whole day_ to train from New York to here, which went through Pittsburgh and Cleveland. And we couldn't sleep for half of it. Coming back, it's going to go past a bit quicker because we've got to cross time zones, which is going to take an hour out. So, I'm leaving the decision to you as to which route we take, and it'll need to be made now."

Duncan stared ahead for several minutes, contemplating what Gwen had just said. It was either get on the soon to come train, or wait a while for one that was skipping most of the major cities. He wanted to take the longer route, but he reluctantly admitted to himself that she was right.

"Fine." He said, nodding briefly. "We'll wait for the later train."

XX

 **Location** : Train leaving Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA  
 **Contestants on train:** Bridgette, Lightning

It had been raining for several days in Minneapolis, which had dampened a few spirits. But on this day, it was merely cloudy. A double decker train had just made its last stop in the city, and was headed for Milwaukee next.

On board the train, on the upper level of the third carriage, Bridgette had two different train schedules on the tray table in front of her, as well as a train route map.

"Okay, there has to be a better way to get to Toronto than this… right?" She asked herself, looking up in thought. "Where's that calculator I got in Fargo…" She reached over for her backpack, which was on the neighbouring seat, and quickly pulled out a calculator from the front pocket.

Meanwhile, Lightning was further down the carriage, flicking through a sports magazine.

"Man this sha-sucks…" He muttered, closing the magazine and putting it down. "First Lightning thought he was gonna be outta the States in a flash… but not now…" Looking over his shoulder, he got up and jogged down to the end of the carriage, opening the door and quickly going into the next.

Having noticed Lightning going past yet brushed it aside, Bridgette continued looking at the schedules and route map, racking her brains for an answer.

"How long was it from Newark to Chicago… something like twenty hours?" She wondered, turning to the calculator. "We went from Eastern to Central Time, so… wait, it was somewhere around 23 hours. We got into New York at around… six or seven in the evening, had to wait an hour for the train to Newark… then waited two hours for the Amtrak train…" Bridgette sighed and hung her head. "I just can't get anywhere with this… maybe I need to sleep…"

Nearly three hours later, the train was not far away from going through Madison, Wisconsin, as well as having one state to cross before coming into Eastern Time.

Bridgette opened her eyes and turned to the window, having been asleep for two and a half hours of the time that had passed. She looked down at the schedules and route map still on the tray table, and she suddenly realized what had to be done.

"If it's going to take a day from Chicago to New York… then another half day from there to Toronto… and then again it's a Saturday, so one more day after this… we should stay on the train?" She looked at the route map again, stopping when she saw a quicker route. "Oh… why not go through Cleveland and Albany? It'll skip a lot of the big cities… like New York…"

Pushing the route map to the side slightly, Bridgette picked up one of the schedules and looked at it, almost immediately spotting a train that went at half past midnight from Chicago to Toronto.

"It's at a crazy time… but it'll definitely work." She said, smiling. "Okay… finally sorted it out." She looked over her shoulder as Lightning sauntered back into the carriage, an open packet of crisps in his hand. "Alright, as much as I don't exactly want to be talking about this with someone I barely know… it'll have to happen.

XX

 **Yay, I've finally completed this :D hope you all enjoyed, and don't bother if timing seems to be a bit out of place with some of the mini-chapters. It was… quite confusing to work out.**

 **Next chapter… hm, let's see if I can get back onto this fortnightly update schedule again. So not this weekend, but the next.**

 **Until next time!**


	12. Chapter 12: A Fraction of Hope

**Welp, I guess this was a bit later than I expected, but I got this chapter done quite a bit quicker than the last, so that must be good :D**

 **Don't own Total Drama, yada yada, you know the drill by now. Just read and enjoy :P**

 _ **Chapter 12 – A Fraction of Hope**_

Although cutting it very close, each of the four remaining contestants were slowly making their way back to Toronto. There was still the odd problem popping up in their midst, but after the surprising split up in Devils Lake, a majority of them had been very minor, and didn't cause much of a fuss.

But in Canada, it wasn't so calm. Fellow contestants, hosts, fans, friends and family, all worrying about them. Of course it wasn't like they knew anything about where they were really at.

XX

It was a glum day in Toronto, with dark rainclouds looming over the city. Inside the hotel, it was just as melancholy.

Courtney sat on the edge of her bed, staring into space. She knew that Bridgette had volunteered to help with finding the others, but she didn't expect her to be possibly stuck somewhere in the States.

"I can't lose hope yet… she'll definitely be back by tonight at least." She said to herself, then getting up and walking out to the hallway, where Geoff was slowly walking around whilst on the phone.

"Okay, I'll call you the minute he gets here." He said, quickly looking over his shoulder as Courtney walked past. "Don't worry dudette, he'll be going straight to Vancouver after all this chaos… but he'll probably want a proper night's sleep here before he goes on a four hour flight. Apart from that… when he gets here, his next stop is Vancouver, and he'll be at the hotel for one night at the least. You tell your mom that."

DJ sauntered out of his room, spotting his friend in the hallway, just as he ended the call.

"Is… uh, everything alright?" He asked.

"Oh man, not at all." Geoff replied, shaking his head. "Almost the whole of Vancouver's gone absolutely _bonkers_. I dunno what other places are doing though."

"Dang… this is makin' me wanna go back there right now, but I can't yet."

"What's happenin' in Vancouver?" Leshawna asked as she walked out of her room.

"Oh, it's going nuts there. Just crazy." Geoff said, putting his phone in his shorts pocket. "It's probably the worst at Duncan's house. His mom's in hysterics, and his sister's… locked herself away in her room and won't come out until she hears some good news about him… like if he arrives here tonight or tomorrow. I didn't hear about how the rest of 'em were coping."

"Aw, poor girl. It'll be real hard for her. Oh, was that who you were talkin' to?"

"Yep."

"Man, it better be tomorrow." DJ added. "Wasn't it… a week as the time limit or something?"

"I think so… yeah, Sunday's tomorrow… oh man…"

"Come on now, you two needa stop being so sad." Leshawna said, coming in between the two guys. "I'm worried too, but I _know_ they'll be back in time. You just gotta be thinkin' positive."

"I dunno… it's kinda hard not to be happy in a situation like this." DJ replied, looking towards the faraway window at the end of the hallway.

XX

Later on, everyone that was still at the hotel had gone to bed, even though it wasn't quite eleven o'clock. But with the heavy weight of their potentially forever missing cast mates on their shoulders, it made them all want to do nothing else but sleep.

Cody stared at the roof, his mind still boggling over Sierra's sudden drop in attention – it was almost like her obsession had vanished completely. Part of him wanted to yell for joy and throw himself a party – but the other part felt slightly strange; almost as if he missed those times.

"I've gotten used to it so much… and now it's just weird." He said quietly, sighing. "Maybe she's moving on… I guess that's good?"

After lying there for a few minutes, Cody got up and went to the bathroom, coming back a few minutes later. He walked alongside the various rooms that were closed, but stopped when he saw an open door.

"Who's that…?" He wondered, stepping forward and peering in. "Oh… you alright dude?"

"Huh?" Geoff looked towards the open door, having been staring at the wall for quite some time. "Oh, it's nothing… other than… man, I'm just so worried for… well, all four of them I guess. Bridgette most of all. I just can't get to sleep."

"I can't sleep either, but my problem's a bit different." Cody said as he walked inside. "You see… Sierra's pretty much… _stopped_ obsessing over me."

"Dude… wait, what? Really?"

"I've been thinking about it ever since she got back with Alejandro and that Neil guy. I just… I dunno. I think she's growing out of it."

"Well we all grow out of stuff as time goes by. I mean, I haven't been to as many parties lately, but half of that's been because of this show. But now… man, with college around the corner, it's just all happening at once."

"Yeah, it's pretty crazy. But it'll be happening to everyone… if not then mostly everyone?"

"I can't go home until Bridgette gets back though."

"Well… I'm pretty sure she'll be back tomorrow. I mean, who knows, they might all be on a train to Toronto right now."

"Oh man, I hope so. I don't wanna have to stay here for any longer. I miss all my peeps back in Halifax."

XX

Early the next morning, surprisingly everyone was up at first light, wanting to see if their cast mates were to arrive soon. In fact, several were making a thirty-minute walk to the railway station, despite it still being rather dark.

It was a long couple of hours as they waited at the station. Geoff eventually arrived after ten minutes, having stopped by a café to find some breakfast, with Courtney then leaving to do the same. Cameron went down to the nearby bookstore and bought himself a copy of the local paper to read as he waited. More people disappeared to get breakfast, yet still coming back a few minutes later. Lindsay got herself a couple of fashion magazines from the bookstore.

After two hours had passed, there was still no one that had come into the station.

"I dunno how long these guys are gonna be, so I think we should be going back to the hotel." Geoff said before slowly walking out to the street.

Several glances were cast at the currently train-less tracks before the rest of the contestants started to move off. They all had no idea what the fate of their cast mates was, and all hope had left them… except for one bit. One little fraction of hope that Gwen, Bridgette, Lightning and Duncan would be in Toronto before they knew it.

Another hour or so later, a football game was blaring in the TV room at the hotel, which had distracted many of the guys from the situation at hand, especially Geoff and DJ.

"Oh man, they're gonna go for touchdown!" Geoff exclaimed, sitting up in excitement.

"Uh, my apologies on interrupting the thrill of this game, but Chris and Chef are here." Alejandro said, looking away from the window he was standing next to.

"They are?" Mike repeated, standing up. "I guess some of us better go down to the lobby to meet them."

"I'll go." Tyler volunteered, moving away from the wall and walking out of the room.

"Uh… I guess I will too." DJ said, getting up from the floor and following his former Bass teammate.

Downstairs, Leshawna and Zoey were already waiting, having seen the black limousine pull up outside the hotel. The door opened and Chris walked in, just as DJ and Tyler came out from the stairwell.

"Nobody back yet, if… that's what you're here to find out about." Tyler said with a shrug.

"What, so half the cast is still in the States?" Chris asked, his voice rising in worry as Chef came in.

"Um… no… I don't know if you heard about Cameron and Mike coming back the other night with Jo and Sam, but… they're here now." Zoey replied.

"Well… no, no I didn't. Great, four down, four to go."

"Will they actually get back in time?" DJ asked nervously, raising an eyebrow.

"Relax, they'll be fine. Lawsuits and all that will be forcing us to get a search and rescue team hunting around for them if they're not back by midnight tonight."

"Oh… you never said about that before…"

"Anyhoo, there's a meeting at the producers' office, so we'll be off." Chris and Chef went back outside, the automatic doors sliding shut behind them.

The four contestants were silent for a few minutes, slightly surprised by how short the visit was.

"Well, Imma goin' back up to this movie." Leshawna said eventually, turning around and heading off towards the stairwell door.

"You guys got a movie on?" DJ exclaimed, looking over his shoulder.

"Sort of… I guess. It was only just put on." Zoey replied with a shrug. "I haven't seen it before, but it's called The Heat and apparently it's hilarious."

"Oh man, I've heard that's a good movie." Tyler chuckled as Zoey went over to the stairwell. "But I wanna get back to this football. Wonder what we've missed."

The two guys made their way back upstairs and into the TV room, which was filled with laughter. Additionally, cans of soda were being passed round.

"Dudes, you gotta join in on this!" Geoff called, then getting two blue and white cans from a large box. "Raided the kitchen and found these babies."

"Anything else we missed?" Tyler asked as he was given one of the cans.

"Oh yeah, we've split ourselves into two, because both teams are mostly on pretty neutral ground for all of us. So I think there's four or something on each team, so… yeah

"Awesome!" DJ grinned. "So what team's where?"

"Oh, I'm by the window… and supporting a British Columbia team, and the other guys are supporting the other one, which is… somewhere in Saskatchewan? That right?"

"Hey, I'm from Saskatchewan!" Tyler exclaimed, running over to the group of guys next to the wall, which consisted of Alejandro, Mike and Cody.

"Guess I got the window." DJ said, sauntering over to where Sam was waiting.

"Aw, sweet, three dudes from Saskatchewan!" Cody cheered, high fiving Tyler as he joined them.

Meanwhile, most of the girls were gathered in a smaller TV room, watching a movie.

"You know, this feels good." Beth remarked. "No cameras on us, no competition hanging over us…"

"Oh my gosh, I know, right?" Lindsay added with a nod.

"Can we shut the door?" Zoey asked. "It's just that the guys are being really noisy in the other room."

"Ugh, guys and their sports." Courtney groaned, shaking her head. "Yeah, probably a good idea."

The movie eventually started proper, and before long all the girls were laughing as hard as the guys were.

"Run, you dang idiot, run!" Leshawna hooted, slapping the floor. "Hoo boy, five minutes into this thing and we're already laughing like hyenas. And I've seen this at least twice before."

"That was a lucky find at the video store though." Courtney said, straightening herself up after falling to the side in laughter earlier. "Oh no, my cheeks already hurt…"

"Girl, this is just the beginning of all the funny stuff."

A loud knock suddenly startled the girls, and they looked to the door.

"McLean's here!" Jo called from the other side.

"Again?" Zoey exclaimed. "What happened this time?"

"Imma go see what's happened." Leshawna said, getting up and opening the door, as she was seated right next to it.

"Anyone else up here?" Chris called from the bottom of the stairwell. "I've got good news and bad news."

"Good news and bad news?" Beth repeated. "Uh oh…"

"The good news is coming up the stairs riiiight now. Found these guys at the train station."

"Are they here?" Courtney wondered, pausing the movie as Leshawna slowly walked out.

"I think they are!" Beth replied, looking back to the door.

"Is someone here?" Geoff called from down the hallway.

"Yep." Leshawna said as the door opened and Gwen walked out. "Girl, what's… what the… when… where's all that make-up gone?" She stammered, noticing that her friend wasn't wearing any of her signature lipstick.

"Oh my gosh, someone lost their make-up?" Lindsay exclaimed, leaping to her feet. "I have some!"

"I don't know if that's what she meant…" Zoey said slowly.

"I didn't lose it, I've just stopped using it." Gwen said, sighing.

"Oh, it's Gwen… wait, _what_?"

"She… huh?" Courtney shook her head in astonishment before jumping up and running for the doorway, yet stopped as Leshawna moved over to block it.

"Girl, when something like this happens to a person, they don't wanna have all the attention." She said, shaking her head. "And Gwen's a… pretty dang good example right now."

"Oh… okay… so what happened? Did they not get anywhere?"

"They… uh, who ya talkin about?"

"Bridgette's not here." Gwen called, prompting both Courtney and Leshawna to look out to where she was standing in shock.

"But how?" Courtney asked.

"Girl, you go into the States with her, but don't come out with her. What the heck happened there?" Leshawna added.

"Oh, there was a bit of a… split in North Dakota."

"Split?" Zoey repeated from inside the TV room.

"It's a long story, but I got stuck on the train." Gwen continued, then walking over to the doorway as Leshawna slowly stepped out. "And guess who I was stuck with." She deadpanned as a bathroom door close to the stairs opened.

"Oh…" Courtney dropped her voice to a whisper as she saw Duncan saunter out of the bathroom. "Well that would have been fun." She said as they backed into the TV room.

"Yep. Yesterday we couldn't even decide on which train route from Chicago we'd take."

"Damn." Leshawna said quietly as she shut the door. "Oh… uh, ya mind joining in on watching a movie?"

"Sure. I could actually do with something like that, after sitting on trains for hours on end."

Meanwhile, back out in the hallway, Duncan was standing near the stairwell, having not exactly taken notice of the three girls briefly talking about him.

Geoff slowly walked out of the larger TV room, deciding to see what the fuss was all about. Quickly glancing out the window, he turned to walk towards the bathroom, but stopped in his tracks once he saw his friend.

"Dude!" He exclaimed, shaking his head in astonishment. "You made it!"

"Huh?" Duncan looked down the hallway to see Geoff standing a few feet away from the stairs and grinning. "Yep, guess so. I'm pretty drained though. That was one long week."

"That sucks man. Oh yeah, hold on a sec!" Geoff whipped his phone out and quickly dialled the most recent number he'd called, and got an answer within a matter of seconds. "Well I have some news!" He said with a grin. "Wait up, I'll just be passing you to someone else, gotta go to the bathroom."

Duncan opened his mouth to ask who it was, but closed it as Geoff tossed the phone over to him, and he hurriedly caught it. He took one look at the caller ID and immediately adopted a slightly concerned expression.

"Yeah, she's been… more than worried." Geoff said with a shrug. "Hey, where's the other peeps at?"

"Sorry dude, but… Bridgette's not here yet." Duncan replied as he put the phone up to his ear. "Alright, I'm alive, just don't start yelling into my ear. I'm going to bed once I'm done with this."

Geoff froze once he heard what Duncan said, and slowly looked over his shoulder at the stairs.

"Aw man… no, no, no, no…" He said, shaking his head and bolting off down the hallway.

xx

The day drifted on into the early evening, with still no sign of Bridgette or Lightning. At that point, the majority of the contestants were all in the dining hall having dinner, save Duncan, who had been sleeping for the past few hours (and was still), and Geoff, who was in his hotel room and not coming out.

Zoey stared blankly down at her bowl of minestrone soup, looking up as the door suddenly opened and Chris walked in.

"Uh… what's happenin' now?" DJ asked warily, sitting up.

"Well… since there's been no more arrivals, we'll be sending the search and rescue people out at midnight tonight." Chris replied, stopping as he heard the sound of the automatic doors opening. "And who might that be?" He wondered, turning around.

The rest of the contestants at the table shifted around in their seats, trying to see if whoever had arrived was coming into the dining hall. And sure enough, Chris had to step out of the way as Lightning leapt in, sliding on the marble floor as he slowed down to a stop.

"Sha-Lightning!" He declared, grinning.

Realizing what it could possibly mean, Courtney shot up and sprinted out of the room, going down a fairly short hallway before bursting into the lobby, and nearly crashing into Bridgette on her way. The two girls stopped and looked at each other for a few seconds before hugging.

"I'm so glad I made it…" Bridgette said with a sigh, looking up at the roof as they pulled apart. "I thought all hope was lost after leaving North Dakota."

"Yeah, I… sort of heard about that." Courtney nodded. "But i had one little bit of hope left that you'd be back by tonight at least. Oh, and before you ask, Geoff's upstairs in his hotel room. He hasn't come out of there since half past two this afternoon."

"Oh… oh no…"

xx

 **So… all's now well and good, with the last four finally back. Just… hang in there. There's even more coming. xD**

 **Until next time!**


	13. Chapter 13: When a Journey Ends

**Okay, couple of things before you start reading this. First off, I know this is way later than it should have been, and I'm sorry for not updating. But that leads to the second thing – writers' block decided to spend parts of summer break in my mind, which really helped. Then again, I did get** _ **some**_ **done, as I was participating in a 3-month writing challenge (based off the National Novel Writing Month challenges) on the Total Drama Writer's Forum, which meant a chance to get more words down for this fic. There weren't as many as I'd have liked, but I hadn't completely abandoned this stuff for the whole time, at least.**

 **Anyway… you all know the deal with disclaimers, so I'm just going to skip it completely. Enjoy this horribly late new chapter! :D**

 _ **Chapter 13 – When A Journey Ends**_

Newspaper articles. Radio announcements. Live news reports. It was everywhere – the cast of Total Drama All Stars, plus Bridgette, were finally back in Toronto. Many of Canada's citizens were flooded with relief to hear that all fifteen contestants were safe and sound.

It had been a rocky week, with a variety of ups and downs, from as great as Alejandro finding Sierra at Neil's apartment, to as devastating as the major split in Devils Lake. In the end, all was well in a general aspect, yet there were still several things that fans wanted to see fixed…

xx

After the rain came later that evening, it cleared off overnight, as well as the cloud, and the next day was much better – almost as if the last four contestants arriving was a sign of the weather changing.

Activity around the hotel was much livelier, with all worries having been lifted right off. All close friends and family of the formerly missing contestants had been in some way alerted of the news, and were waiting in anticipation for the time when they'd finally see them.

In the large living room where the first meeting was held, all fifteen were gathered in there, sitting in groups based on where in the States they had to go to, or in others' cases, where they were stuck at for most of the time. Chris stood up at the front, a bunch of papers in hand and all eight tracking devices at his feet.

"So… any problems?" He asked, looking up.

The contestants looked around at each other, until Zoey eventually spoke up, sitting on a sofa with Courtney, Heather and Lindsay, with Scott standing off to the side.

"We arrived an hour before they were due to leave… so it meant another flight had to be booked, which took a lot of time, but we ended up back here on the same day so it worked out." She said, then looking to her left, where Alejandro and Sierra were seated on opposite ends of a three-seater sofa.

"Well, to start off with I guess the tracker's battery going flat classifies as a minor problem, even though I did find Sierra merely a few minutes later." Alejandro began with a shrug. "The next day proved to be worse, as the train kept on getting delayed due to a… major mechanical difficulty, it seemed."

"We didn't leave until like quarter past eleven at night." Sierra chipped in, earning a few quiet murmurs from the others. "And the train meant to come at two in the afternoon."

Raising an eyebrow at the fact, Jo stood up next to speak, being the only one seated on the couch, with the three guys standing slightly off to the side.

"Eh, no real problems for us, except for walking around Little Rock for three days with no money." She said, shrugging and sitting back down again. "Then again I think all of us stuck in wherever were broke anyway."

The last group to speak were in the corner of the room – Gwen and Bridgette on a two-seater sofa, with Duncan and Lightning standing a few feet behind it.

"My tracker went flat as well, but at that point we were nowhere near where we needed to be." Bridgette began. "So it didn't help much if the guys then ended up going in different directions."

"We made a… pretty big mistake by thinking that mine didn't have much life left either, so we never used it from Minneapolis onwards." Gwen continued. "But then I pull it out at the right time, and as it turned out, I didn't even need to go as far as getting on the train."

The girls were then silent, thus allowing the guys to speak up.

"Well, uh… Lightning had no food for a long time." Lightning said with a small shrug.

"And I was stuck with all the food, but no water." Duncan added. "Didn't take me long to find the train café though."

Chris had stayed quiet the entire time, raising an eyebrow every now and then at what some of the contestants had to say.

"Interesting…" He said slowly, taking another look at the papers. "Well, gotta go to a quick meeting with the producers now, but _everyone_ needs to be back in here at midday for an announcement."

"Everyone?" Cameron repeated as Chris left the room, but got no answer. "I'm thinking by that he means everyone else that's at the hotel right now."

"Do you think that'll include the people who live in Toronto?" Zoey asked. "I know Dakota and Owen do, and… I guess the people who came here to wait for us will be."

"Well… I don't know about the others who didn't end up coming here, since Chris seemed to mean everyone. But I guess they'll hear about… whatever the announcement is in due time."

After a silence of about ten or so seconds, the contestants started moving out of the room, heading off to other areas in the hotel.

Out in the hallway, Cody was waiting by the door, having heard most of what was said earlier. Once the room seemed to be empty, he slowly walked over and poked his head in, but stepped back, having seen Heather still sitting on the large sofa.

"I'll wait until it's completely empty." He muttered under his breath, stepping back behind the wall even further.

Meanwhile, the group had thinned out considerably, with just Alejandro, Jo, Sierra and Scott remaining. Alejandro looked around, realizing that someone was missing, and ran back towards the large living area. Sierra noticed him run off, and followed at a slow walk, curious to find out what he was doing, and what would happen.

Back outside the lounge room, Cody leaned against the wall, whistling idly. He noticed Alejandro going back in, but didn't think much of it until he saw Sierra come back around the corner.

"Uh… what's going on?" He asked warily, stepping back a couple of feet.

"I dunno, something." Sierra said quietly in reply, peeping out from behind the wall to look into the room. "Oh em gee… look!"

Cody raised an eyebrow and looked in from the other side, keeping himself as scarce as possible. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw Heather now hugging her knees, and Alejandro standing in front, a hand hesitantly placed on her shoulder. A rather hushed conversation seemed to be going on between them.

"No way." Cody said under his breath, looking towards Sierra, who was smiling giddily. He noticed the smile disappearing, and turned to see Heather getting up and proceeding to walk away, but she stopped and looked back at Alejandro. "Oh…"

Both kept on watching for at least a couple of minutes, yet not being noticed by either of the third season finalists, and not noticing Dawn standing behind them, positioned directly opposite the large entranceway.

Sierra clenched her fist in anticipation as she waited for the next thing to happen, which for her, seemed to take forever.

"When are they gonna… do something?" She wondered as she looked over her right shoulder, still keeping her voice low.

"Now!" Cody hissed.

"Huh?" Sierra snapped her head back towards the living room and had to stop herself from squealing as she saw the two sceptical lovers embracing each other. "Yes, yes, oh em gee yes!" She grinned.

xx

Way over on the other side of the hotel, Bridgette and Geoff were sitting in a quiet, secluded room with just the one sofa and a pot plant in it.

"So, you kinda got split up in a place in North Dakota or something, right?" Geoff asked.

"Yeah, it was called Devils Lake." Bridgette replied. "Gwen and I had just gotten off the bus there, and we went into a supermarket first to get some things before we went any further. Then we went back to the train station, where the bus had dropped us off... and once a double decker train pulled up, Gwen had run off towards it, but I never noticed."

"Did she see someone on there?"

"Well... not quite seeing, but neither of us used our tracking devices from Minneapolis onwards, because mine had gone flat, and we'd decided that the other didn't have much life left either. But I think Gwen had thought her person, which turned out to be Lightning, was actually on the train, but he was outside, and had meant to get on the train, but... he saw me and apparently thought I looked familiar."

"Huh, okay then. So Duncan... was he on the train or something?"

"Yeah, at the same time as Gwen." Bridgette giggled. "All the way from Devils Lake to Toronto."

"Oh man, awkward." Geoff snickered. "How was your train ride then?"

"Long, of course, but there was a stop at Chicago, which was only for something like half an hour, I think. It was all so confusing though… I spent a lot of the time to Chicago trying to find out how things were to go, and what train routes we were to take."

"Dang… I'm so glad you made it back here though."

"I know, I am too. Sometimes I was starting to regret joining in on that search, especially after the split, but it… all went well!"

Geoff grinned, but it disappeared as soon as he heard voices coming from some distance away, and he looked over his shoulder towards the doorway. "Who's talking?" He wondered, raising an eyebrow.

"Talking?" Bridgette repeated, standing up and turning to look at the door. "I guess I can hear some, but I don't really know who it is. Do you think we should we go and see?"

"Uh… nah, let them have their privacy. Don't wanna interrupt anything."

xx

In another similar room, but with a bit of a balcony, the sliding door was wide open, and the cool late summer breeze was gently blowing in. There was no one in the room at the time, but Gwen and Duncan were both out on the balcony, standing at opposite ends.

"So I… guess you were right." Duncan said slowly, fiddling with a small rubber band whilst leaning on the railing. "Taking the route through Cleveland and Albany."

"Well I… already knew it was going to take a lot longer going around them and through one of the biggest cities in the world." Gwen replied with a shrug. "I actually wish that Bridgette and I… took the route from Albany in the first place, but everyone else was going to New York, so I guess we… er, just followed them." She looked over her shoulder for a few seconds before sighing and turning back. "Okay, this… this is stupid."

"What do you mean?"

"Well… I think all of this probably wouldn't have happened if… Chris didn't choose us as the last two people to be in season five."

"It's Chris though. Whoever he picked, half of them were probably going to end up scattered all around the place anyway. Heck, I was thinking that I was going to end up going all the way up to Nunavut or somewhere in northern Ontario."

"Well you were getting colder on the answer."

"Pfft…" Duncan snickered for a few seconds. "And this is stupid as well."

"What's stupid?"

"Pretty sure that a couple of the days ago we didn't even want to go near each other or something.

"Oh…" Gwen looked away, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow, "well yeah, there _is_ that. I guess it is stupid. Why did it happen anyway?"

"Because everything on that season was crap. I had no idea where Chris was getting the challenges from, what happened to the escaped psycho killer? Dumped in the woods with Chef running the challenge? Awake-a-thon?"

"Let's just agree that Chris's gone nuts from prison, and just got those challenges from a book or something. And… wait, I think it's nearly midday…"

xx

It was indeed midday, and merely a minute after, all of the contestants who had been residing there were all gathered in the large living room, some sitting on the floor due to the lack of seating.

"Do you know what Chris might be… well, announcing?" Courtney whispered to Bridgette, who shook her head in reply.

Immediately after, Chris strode into the room with a clipboard, looking unusually solemn.

"This face is normally on when there's a marshmallow ceremony." He said, pointing to his face. "But this has nothing to do with marshmallows at all. And if you were wondering, everyone else who _isn't_ here will probably already know about this, unless some are still in bed and haven't checked their emails."

"Dude, can you get on with it?" Geoff asked. "I gotta be at the airport by one."

"Fine. I'll get straight to the point." Chris paused for a few seconds, prompting some of the contestants to shift around nervously. "New season coming up, as you know, and we've got the final fourteen who're gonna be in it. But, the producers came to a decision just earlier that you guys probably need to get on with your lives. So as of this moment, neither of you, and this includes all the others not here, will be needed again for any future stuff."

"So… n-no more Total Drama?" Sierra squeaked, looking more scared than anyone.

"Yep, 'fraid so."

The entire room was silent for several minutes, and no one even did as much as shuffle around a bit. They knew that this was definitely the end of a hellish rollercoaster, and there'd be no more call backs for new seasons of anything. But everyone had also known each other for what felt to them like half a lifetime.

"Well…" Chris began, suddenly looking a bit downtrodden himself, "got another meeting for this new season, so… let me do this quickly." He looked to the left of the room, where the twelve first season contestants sat. "Y'know, you lot were the first auditions to be sent in. And if you hadn't chosen to, then Total Drama wouldn't have happened. We weren't getting far with only three auditions, but then a whole bunch get sent to us in the space of four days. Look at it now, pushed up to international TV by the end of season one, and… uh, nominated for a Gemmie."

"Nominated…" Courtney muttered under her breath, looking at the ground.

"What do we get then?" Jo asked.

Chris looked at her with a raised eyebrow before replying. "Well, auditions were piling in for season four, and you guys were… pretty early to get in on it."

"And us?" Alejandro continued.

"Eh, I dunno. You weren't planned to be on season three until after the Gemmies. So nothing really. Anyway, gotta fly so… uh, have fun with the rest of your lives." Chris chuckled awkwardly as he slowly stepped out to the hallway.

Another silence filled the room, this time shorter than the last, for people were quick to speak up.

"Dude… totally didn't see that one coming…" Geoff said slowly, exhaling deeply. "Guess I will miss this show a little bit. I mean, it was pretty much our _life_."

"It's definitely… taken all of us a few places." Courtney put in. "And although I don't think I'll really miss it that much… it's still sad to see this journey ending."

Gwen looked up at the roof for a few seconds before having her say. "I had no idea what my brother was thinking when he dared me to sign up for the show, but I've done some things that probably would have ended up on my bucket list. So in some ways I don't regret sending an audition in at all."

"Hold on, wasn't there a bus supposed to come in five minutes or somethin'?" DJ wondered, checking his watch. "I know we all packed our stuff last night but… we might wanna get ready."

It didn't take long for all twenty contestants to get out of the room and race up to get their bags down to the lobby. After drastic last-minute searches for missing toiletries, and quick checks to see that everything and everyone was accounted for, they made their way outside to the hotel carpark, just in time for a bus to pull up. Bags were packed into the compartment underneath, the seats were slowly filled, and after another five minutes, they were off on their final return home.

The grim atmosphere from the living room had been left behind, and the contestants were all having light-hearted conversations with each other, and some were even playing a celebrity guessing game. Memories from all of the five previous seasons were tossed around the bus, with some of the most hilarious ones setting several people off. But although the hotel was a long way from the airport, the ride went past very quickly.

"Airport!" Beth exclaimed as the bus slowly pulled up outside it.

"Huh?" Lindsay choked out, having just woken up from a nap.

It was a quick evacuation of the bus, with everyone eager to check in and find their departure gates. And contrary to the bus ride, a process that would have taken at least five to ten minutes seemed to take forever. The moment finally came when the contestants were spread out around several tables, standing in groups that went by where their next destination was.

"I thought you lived in Montreal?" Courtney said to Heather, who was standing alone.

"Uh, Quebec City." She replied shortly, shrugging.

Nothing was said for a couple of minutes until a boarding announcement for a flight to Calgary sounded out.

"Home..." Dawn muttered under her breath, looking towards the massive window behind her. "Well, everything must come to an end." She turned back to her former cast mates. "I wish you all well in life, and I can already envision that many conflicts will get resolved."

"And uh… yeah, have good lives." Lightning put in, stepping back along with his former teammate. "Sha-later."

From then on, it was a chain of people leaving for certain destinations around Canada. Off to Halifax went Sierra, Geoff, Jo, Cameron and Bridgette, the majority planning to catch trains or buses from there to their own hometowns. A Winnipeg flight beckoned for a sizeable chunk of the crowd to head off, yet Beth and Sam were the only ones not booked on a later connecting flight. Heather was next to depart, with Alejandro joining her for the journey back to Quebec City. And then, only two boarding announcements were left.

"Nearly there… nearly there…" Courtney whispered repeatedly, staring up at the schedule on the large screen. "Come on… any second now…" She suddenly perked up as an announcement again, even more so when she heard the flight number and destination… but her face fell as she heard the last thing she wanted to hear.

"What happened?" Lindsay asked, looking around in confusion.

"The Montreal flight's… been delayed." Courtney replied, looking down. "Don't know how long for though… but I guess we'll be spending a bit more time at the airport. Again." She looked around, noticing that someone wasn't present. "Where'd Scott go?"

Once the announcement finished, another echoed through the massive room, this time for a flight headed to Vancouver.

"Uh… sorry guys, but we gotta go now." DJ told the girls, turning to look for the other two that were to be on the same flight, yet only saw one.

"Gone to the bathroom." Gwen said simply, shrugging. "He'll probably be out any second now though." She looked up as another boarding announcement sounded out, this time saying that there was a mix-up between the Montreal flight and a Boston flight, therefore the latter was the one to be delayed. "Okay, guess we're all going."

Once the two guys got back, the six headed off to their gates, which were rather close in proximity, yet there still was a point where they had to split off. It was done in near silence, with everyone just glancing at each other before they turned.

Courtney stopped as a thought struck her, and she looked back towards the Vancouver trio. DJ appeared to be a bit further ahead, yet Gwen and Duncan had lagged behind, swinging witty remarks and bad jokes between them, a playful shove coming into play once or twice. Courtney smiled, despite the slight sinking feeling in her heart. She turned back to where she was headed, and saw Scott several yards ahead, also stopped and looking back at her. Freezing for a second, Courtney looked over her shoulder once more, but after a few seconds shook her head and strode ahead.

xx

 **Alright, I know there'll be some people thinking this, so I'm just going to say that** _ **this isn't the last chapter**_ **! There's still two more to come, and they take place… a couple of years on from whatever time this is set at, and at Christmas. There'll be more OCs (yet only one or two), and I'll just say that they're… not random people that pop up out of nowhere.**

 **Until next time!**


End file.
